About

Poochyena is a Dark-type Pokémon introduced in Generation III. Its small, puppy-like design has made it the subject of fan art and memes in the decades since it was first released.

Origin

Poochyena first appeared in the third generation of Pokémon games, Pokémon Ruby, Pokémon Sapphire, and Pokémon Emerald. In those games and in most subsequent titles, Poochyena is an early-game Dark-type Pokémon^[1] that evolves into Mightyena at level 18, and will often be used by the various villainous teams across the games.

Spread

Though often thought of as a weaker Pokémon, Poochyena has become a popular Pokémon due to its prevalence in the games' plots, particularly in the third generation of games. This has led to a large amount of fan art tying the games' plots to Poochyena. For example, on March 25th, 2014, an anonymous Imgur^[2] user posted a meme about how the villainous Team Aqua has lots of Poochyena (shown below, left). Also in 2014, Tumblr comic artist Jelly-bits posted a comic joking that "rising sea levels" scaring Poochyena is what made Team Magma's villainous Maxie begin his crusade against the ocean (shown below, right).

Poochyena was also depicted as various dog memes throughout the 2010s. For example, in 2017, an anonymous poster on /vp/ posted Poochyena in the Angry Dog Noises meme (shown below, left). On January 4th, 2014, a banned KnowYourMeme user posted a meme depicting Poochyena as Doge (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References