How do dogs wear trousers?

 First came the meme, then came Fred the dog, then we decided to solve the meme through empirical investigation.

The “how do dogs wear pants” meme seems first to have come to popularity when posted on twitter in December 2015 by Maxim editor Jered Keller (weirdly, on Rosie’s birthday). It raises a simple, and hugely important question: how would a dog wear trousers? All four legs covered, with a waist horizontally around the dog, or only two legs covered, with a vertical waist (following the classical human approach to trouser-wearing)? It’s obviously a conundrum that matters to a lot of people, having repeatedly done the internet rounds - even Barack Obama was asked about it in an interview. We wanted to answer the question once and for all, so we went about actually making the two pairs of trousers (not pants, sorry American-who-I-assume-originally-created-the-pants-meme) and testing them out on a real life dog. Thankfully Fred has been working hard on his posing recently (seriously - it’s pretty amazing) so it was a breeze to shoot him. We teamed up with long-time collaborator Billie Kermack (whose horror-themed dolls at SidsDollEmporium are something to behold) who created an amazing custom pair of each style for Fred. Not only are the jeans custom made, they’re stitched out of recycled denim and will be used for many years to come; no fast fashion for Fred!

The Result:

No competition. While the four-legged version looks hilarious, poor Fred can’t move in them and you can just tell he feels like an idiot. The two-legged version is the clear winner; a practical fit, allows natural movement, pockets make sense, it doesn’t result in confused stares from the dog. So there you go. Well done, science.