There is no bio line that successfully communicates I am warm, patient and capable of looking after something. Try to write it and you sound like a man describing himself in a job interview. A photograph of someone with a dog does it instantly and without a word — which is precisely why dogfishing exists.

The mechanics are gentler than the name suggests. Nothing about the picture is fake: it's a real photo of a real person holding a real, generally delighted dog. The only false thing is the implication of ownership, and that implication does all the work. The trait being borrowed isn't the dog; it's the character reference the dog silently provides.

It's worth being fair about where the line sits. Being photographed with a friend's spaniel is not a moral failing, and half the internet has done it. The behaviour the word actually describes is narrower — a profile constructed to imply the dog is yours, sometimes with a name and a backstory attached, so that the first date opens with a question you have to deflect. That's a small lie in an otherwise honest profile, which is what keeps dogfishing a joke rather than a scandal. It's still a lie about the most likeable thing on the page.