It’s official. Facebook has gone to the dogs. What started the trend is anyone’s guess. But what has really been driving the trend is a Pomeranian owned by a Facebook employee, the ever-popular Boo, who has more than 1.3 million fans, making him the most popular dog on Facebook. Even the Washington DC Facebook headquarters has an unofficial canine mascot, a dachschund named Lexington, who has his own page too.

Dogbook was a popular application on Facebook a couple of years ago, but more common today is creating a fan page for the dog from one’s own profile. Even the CEO himself, Mark Zuckerberg, created a Facebook page for his pup Beast. The Puli has more than 136,000 likes to date.

Now, the digital age dog has two key qualifications: 1) he or she must be extraordinarily cute, and 2) he or she must wear cute costumes or, at the very least, have a sense of humor in their posting. Which of course means, the owners are either a) a little too obsessed or b) genuinely entertained by their dogs.

According to a recent survey conducted by Lab42 on behalf of the website DoggyLoot.com, it is estimated that up to 14 percent of dog owners now maintain a Facebook page for their pooches. Of those, about 42 percent have between one and 25 friends, while 20 percent have anywhere from 50 to hundreds and now thousands of “likes.”

Several of the CMI staffers, including Cesar, have jumped on the bandwagon. Check out the CMI pack on Facebook here: