An annual United States observance on the second Saturday in May that honors women who care for dogs as family.
“A dating app, not a charity, created National Dog Mom's Day in 2018.
In 2018, Dig, a dating app for dog lovers run by sisters Leigh and Casey Isaacson, ran a petition and submitted National Dog Mom's Day to the National Day Calendar registry, which recognized it for the second Saturday in May. The company, Dig Dates, Inc., named the day in its own 2018 SEC business-plan filing.
<![CDATA[National Dog Mom's Day did not come from a pet charity or a greeting-card company. It came from a dating app.
In 2018, two sisters running an app for dog lovers decided the women who treat their dogs like children deserved their own square on the calendar. They picked the second Saturday in May, which lands the day right before Mother's Day every year. That timing was no accident, and it is where the day's argument lives.
The idea was not as fringe as it sounds. By the time the day appeared, dog owners had become the people most likely of all pet owners to say their animal is as much family as a human relative. National Dog Mom's Day gave that feeling a name and a Saturday.]]>
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It also grew out of a bad date. Casey Isaacson was seeing a man who, by the end, would not let her Cavapoo onto the couch without towels laid down first. She told her sister Leigh she wished she had known from the start that a dog person and a dog skeptic were never going to work.
That complaint became a company. Leigh and Casey Isaacson built Dig, a dating app built on a single premise: your relationship with your dog is not negotiable. Dig launched on iPhones on Valentine's Day 2018 and reached Android that October. Leigh ran it as chief executive; Casey led design.
A few months in, the sisters turned to the calendar. They ran a petition and pitched the National Day Calendar on a day for dog moms. National Dog Mom's Day was recognized for the second Saturday in May, and the first one landed on May 12, 2018.
The paper trail is unusually corporate for a feel-good holiday. Dig's parent company, Dig Dates, Inc., named the day in a business plan it filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission later that year. The app itself has since gone quiet, but the date it created keeps coming back every May.]]>
WHY THIS DAY MATTERS
Most dog owners already call the dog family. This day just names it.
In the AVMA's 2024 figures, 88.8% of US dog owners said they view their dog as a member of the family. National Dog Mom's Day puts a date on a relationship that most owners already describe in those terms.
By sitting one day before Mother's Day, the observance frames dog motherhood as its own thing rather than a lesser version of the human kind. That distinction matters to women who consider a dog their primary dependent.
US dog ownership sits at its highest share of homes on record, and it is still climbing. A day aimed at the women running those households reaches a large and growing audience.
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It falls on the second Saturday in May, which is always the day before Mother's Day.
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