If you’ve been away/been hybernating/had better things to do, here’s THE big story of the week. A dog escaped the clutches of his owner in Richmond Park and started chasing some deer. The owner became exasperated. He blasphemed a lot. Someone filmed the scene and uploaded the clip to YouTube. The clip went viral and launched a thousand skits. And lo, it ended up on daytime TV.

Here’s the original clip:

Some mash-ups quickly appeared. Here are two of the best:

There are many, many more. So could this go on to challenge the infamous Downfall meme? Unlikely, although there’s nothing wrong with combining the two, is there?

Talking of memes colliding, this is an intriguing idea.

On Twitter, the ROFLcopters were circling. This tweet summed up the typical reaction.

In a few short days, Fenton has become a Bonio fide star (sorry). It’s only a matter of time before he’s on a T-shirt.

Twitter is often accused of being home to profanity, inanity and a distinct lack of profundity. Not so. There was originally some confusion over the dog’s name, and that piqued the interest of some people who are probably far too clever to appear in this column.

@sophiescott, a neuroscientist and professor at UCL, was moved to write a blogpost about the Benton/Fenton confusion. It is brilliant.

There’s now a Fenton ringtone, and the word ‘fenton’ could even become part of the English language. Here’s an example of its possible usage.

Fenton himself is now on Twitter, of course. No idea how he types with his paws (massive keyboard? bark recognition?), but he’s pretty eloquent for a dog.