Clarus, The Dogcow

Clarus the Dogcow is a bitmapped image first introduced by Apple Computer. It is the shape of a dog with nose and spots that look like a cow, originally created in 1983 as part of the Cairo font by Susan Kare.

As the Apple developers were working on the original version of the Macintosh Operating System, they needed small images to represent common activities on the computer: starting up, deleting files, showing your printer paper orientation, and waiting for things to happen.

One of the fun images Susan Kare decided to place inside Cairo was that of a tiny dog. An image that, little did she know, was soon to become her most legendary icon of all.