Dancing Merengue Dog

This dog is an accomplished merengue dancer. Video Link. (thanks, Mia Quagliarello)

• [Donald Petersen]

  …and somehow the Internet, as a whole, prefers cats.

  Why???

• [Jack]

  I canot contain how blown away I am by this! What an awesome, awesome, awesome dog!!!

• [Tony Moore]

  …just when i’d convinced myself that my dog wasn’t a damned idiot.

  • [Anonymous]

    Your comment made me laugh harder than any other comment here. Congratulations.

• [Anonymous]

  This in in Chile, btw

• [Rich Keller]

  What are the odds of finding a dog that could learn the routine and fit the costume?

• [Anonymous]

  9-1-10
  How in the world can anyone be cruel to a dog or any pet. Our two dogs are realy part of our family.This dancing dog is unbelievable and truly a star.

• [Tony Moore]

  I like to think my dogs are fairly smart. they understand basic commands, and moreover, pick up on social behavioral cues, but still i can barely get them to pay attention for half a minute, much less do more than a few rudimentary tricks under bribery of cheese. To maintain focus and remember a complex 3-MINUTE routine like this, on top of being an feat of agility, really is a wonder, in both the patience of the trainer and the eagerness of the dog to learn and perform. I’m honestly amazed.

• [Anonymous]

  The lyrics of the song roughly say: “the dance of the little dog”

• [mdh]

  what a day for the bennyhillifier to be busted.

• [technogeek]

  Dog is a far better dancer than I am….

  Part of the process of putting together this long a routine is building in cues to remind the dog of what trick comes next — clearly the dog was responding to the trainer’s gestures/posture at times, and at others there may have been a cue I didn’t notice or a spoken command or even something unique on the soundtrack.

  Another part is that what the human does can make the same trick look different.

  Still, excellent training combined with an unusually good dog. VERY well done.

  • [noah django]

    “clearly the dog was responding to the trainer’s gestures/posture at times, and at others there may have been a cue I didn’t notice or a spoken command or even something unique on the soundtrack.”

    umm, how do you think humans dancing with a partner do it? When dancing without a pre-arranged routine, the lead suggests the next move through gesture and posture (through the left hand and wrist to partner’s right hand/wrist, as well as how close they move toward/away from partner, the step, etc,) or they may speak their intentions for the next move (square dancers even have a guy dedicated to this task), and both react to how the music makes them feel i.e. “cues,” (crescendos etc.)

    no wonder that dog can dance better than you.

    anyway, I was howling with laughter at this video. I love BB.

• [synthsis]

  If I didn’t know any better, I’d sweat that’s a little person in a dog costume.

• [facetedjewel]

  Beats the hell out of Dancing with the Stars. Pretty sure the dog could beat out Bristol in the quarter finals.

• [IronEdithKidd]

  Well, that’s the silliest thing I will see for many weeks to come. Too bad about the bennyhillifier, this video’s just begging for it.

• [ben]

  Creepy AND hilarious.

• [Anonymous]

  this dog is GREAT it is the best thing I’ve seen on tv in a while. thanks for making my day with great entertainment, peggy

• [Anonymous]

  Wow this guy has been spending WAY too much time alone with a dog in a dress!

• [defacebook]

  I wonder if the Arizona state police will ask to see the dog’s papers.

• [Anonymous]

  Added bonus: the song title is “El baile del perrito” (The Little Dog Dance)… wicked!

• [Shoom81]

  I knew they were amongst us! Caniculans!

• [Birko]

  Brilliant !

  And #18, there is a canine involved.
  Don’t troll.

• [Anonymous]

  Thank you for lifting me right out of the doldrums, what a wonderful, happy, beautiful dog, she obviously loves every minute, and she’s has my name!

• [Nadreck]

  Clearly an escaped ‘toon.

• [gewurztraminer]

  It’s like a live action version of the King of the Hill episode where Bobby and Hank compete in a dog dancing contest against one another.

• [eviladrian]

  I just can’t shake the feeling there’s a wire or something holding the dog up and guiding it around. ;-)

• [dougp]

  that dog deserves a t-bone steak after that.

• [Anonymous]

  just…. wow.

  combination of brilliant dog and a truly amazing bond between canine and master (in addition to prolly 4736 hours of practice i’m sure). either way, were i on the boardwalk and stopped to watch, i would be tossing a 10 or 20 bill into the “tip hat”.

  great vid!

• [imag]

  Holy fucking crap. That’s a wonderful thing. And spooky too. It’s almost weird to see the dog be a dog at the end.

• [TK]

  Reincarnation’s a bitch! Literally!

• [RhileighAlmgren]

  This reminds me of the study about whether animals could dance to the beat, or scientifically speaking, whether they shared our “tendency to entrain, or align movement, to an external auditory pulse.” The study (published this year in a peer review study) used YouTube videos as one source.
  The abstract: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez
  The study was also mentioned in a comment to a different post: http://boingboing.net/2009/06/11/death-metal-cockatoo.html#comment-516384

• [sing it, baby]

  Isn’t this the same pooch who left to go live with Michael Vick?

• [xocy]

  You know he’s accomplished because he’s been on a show with Don Francisco.

• [PaulR]

  Merengue? I’d say that dog (and the human) needs to work on their ‘Afro-Cuban Walk’. They walk like European and North Americans.

  Learn to walk like a South American. The hips rotate clockwise / counterclockwise when they walk, whereas Europeans keep the hips facing forward and reliatively immobile.

  See the hip movement here:
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=on4V1KN_Iuw
  FF to the 5:00 mark.
  While the pair isn’t walking forward, you can see that the important part in merengue, is/are the hips.

  I stumbled upon a very good ballroom dancing instructor the first time I took lessons. My partner, who had already taken a number of dancing lessons, told me that it was the first time anyone had explained this business about an Afro-Cuban Walk, and now she was able to dance it.

  • [devophill]

    I’d guess that their dancing is poor because neither one of them is a dancer. One is a dog trainer, and the other is a dog.

  • [Anonymous]

    Wow this is a performance for fun not for fashion fame and for competition. Nonetheless they can top a professional at it!

• [Antinous / Moderator]

  And the Saturday dish went off at a run
  with the silver Sunday spoon.