Gladiator Dog (canine freestyle)

[furtech]

Here's a great canine freestyle routine (dog-dancing) involving swords, dramatic battles and over-acting. Not sure how accurate the fighting is, but it's as good as any sixty-year old Italian gladiator movie!

EDIT: Plus, a cute video on how to keep your cat from eating your food. This is a real training clip (by amateurs), but the cat is adorable.

Comments

[brerandalopex.livejournal.com]

[Brer] I have always thought it would be fun (and virtually impossible) to re-create the Agent Smith battle from Matrix II as a canine freestyle entry. ;)

[brerandalopex.livejournal.com]

[Brer] Also, I dunno if you have seen the Charlie Chaplin one... Looks like the same event:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLWp9zJTlz8

I am impressed at how far this canine performance event has come. A couple years ago the best acts were still mostly just collections of simple tricks strung together to music, with very little attention to timing or choreography. People are really starting to pull it all together now.

When you see a half-hour show of it on Animal Planet you'll know it has arrived...

[furtech.livejournal.com]

Same venue, probably a different year (but could be same event). I'm pretty sure this happened in Britain, where Mary Ray is supreme and her classes and shows have inspired other freestylers to great heights. Here's a link to one of her routines: not too spectacular until you consider how hard it is to get two dogs to do two different things together. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lK43ZUIgPJc)

One of the finest is still Carolyne and Rookie's "You're the One the I Want" routine featurine a golden retriever that is SO HAPPY doing an amazing routine:



Animal Planet has featured canine freestyle many times in various shows: I'm waiting for either a reality show based or a series about freestyle.

[oats-a-plenty.livejournal.com]

That video is about 10 years old, I think, or close to it.

[furtech.livejournal.com]

That sounds about right. This was still in the earlier days of Canine Freestyle (I think it was just called "Freestyle Obedience" in those days). None-the-less, this is a classic routine that only a very few have come close to matching, both in skills and in the sheer joy both dog and human express.

[furtech.livejournal.com]

Actually, the Agent Smith battle would be cool to do with a little digital compositing and a LOT of planning and compiling time! A million border collies fighting...what would Neo be?

[brerandalopex.livejournal.com]

[Brer] Well I was thinking in terms of the human partner being Neo with all the border collies as the Agent Smiths. You could obviously never do it for REAL with any serious number of dogs, but it would be impressive if someone could even pull it off with just three or so.

Would have to be border collies too. I dunno of any other breed that would have the sheer force of concentration and speed.

The biggest challenge would be indicating the tricks. You'd have to have three different queues for each motion and the dogs would have to be mind-bogglingly well trained to execute them with enough precision to get the timing down.

All probably why no one will likely ever attempt it. :)

[furtech.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah! That would work! I want to see someone train their dog to do some of the body-twisting, bullet dodging actions! Give them all dark glasses!

See above for doing routines with more than one dog. Mary Ray is the only one I've seen do a routine with just -two- dogs well. Have you ever tried to do obedience training with both dogs at once? Doing different things at the same time? It's like that...

I am still intrigued by the idea of doing it digitally, tho'!

[iisaw.livejournal.com]

Might not be that hard to do! Just need a green-screen stage.... ;)

[furtech.livejournal.com]

How bored are we?