Our Favorite Things of 2008: Upside Down Dogs

When you get right down to it, the greatest inventions succeed because they do one thing really well. Like a teapot, which has only one job: To pour tea. Anything else is off-message, superfluous, or feature creep.

UpsideDownDogs.com is one such invention. It's a website about exactly one thing: pictures of dogs upside down. Why this is awesome:

1. An upside down dog looks nothing like a dog right side up. In some cases, you can barely tell it's a dog.
2. The hilarity quotient of an upside-down dog is exactly proportionate to the amount of jowl on the animal. Upside-down collies are kind of meh; but an upside-down boxer or English bulldog is basically a pile of floppy dog jowl stacked on a chin with a nose under it, or winging off the sides like Sally Field's hat in The Flying Nun, and thus 600 percent more fantastic.
3. It levels the canine playing field. Right-side up, trendy breeds like chihuahuas and bichonpoos get all the attention. But upside down, a mean-looking thing like a bull mastiff looks so effing adorable, you want to cuddle it to death.
4. It reminds us that gravity rules everything.
5. It's just dogs. Not lizards, not gerbils, not baby deer, and for the love of all things holy, not cats, which - generally speaking - look pretty much the same when they're upside down. (Before you cat types get all ornery in the comments, we're not saying cats are not cute, we're saying that a cat upside down is not funny. There's a difference.)
6. Someone took the time to register the URL and upload the first picture. It warms the cockles.