You know the saying, every dog has its day? Well Daril and his handler Lusy Imbergerova from Italy finally had theirs during the FCI Dog Dancing Championship recently and once you see them in action you’ll understand exactly what I mean. Lusy and Daril have been practicing this single routine for months ahead of this competition and they weren’t planning on taking a loss anytime soon!
The organization hosting the event is known as Federation Cynologique Internationale, and the competition is less about actual dancing dogs and more along the lines of looking for technical orders and the dog’s willingness to carry them out. Some acts do indeed dance, others follow strict “training” routines and others are a combination thereof. Overall it’s one of the most entertaining things to watch if you ever sit back and wonder at these other living beings sharing the planet with us.
As the militaristic tunes begin to fill the arena, the duo are down on the floor as though asleep. Daril quickly rolls around hops up to his feet. He quickly rushes over to Lisa and begins attempting to wake her by removing the blanket she’d wrapped herself in before laying down. What follows is a handler and dog story completely with joy, drama and the inevitable comeback as though it were a full movie condensed into just a few minutes. At one point she whips out this plastic grenade and throws it off to another section of the floor, and the sound effects begin.
Then the most incredible thing happened when a massive boom roared through the speakers. The fake grenade “exploded” on the ground and Lisa falls to the floor as though she’d passed out. Daril runs over and immediately begins a CPR routine, only stopping to lick her face in attempts to wake the woman up, tail wagging back and forth like it was powered by the energizer bunny.
Overall it’s an incredibly cool and touching routine, one that even had the usually impartial judges smiling. I personally believe that pup needs a “good boy” or two. Not that his handler wouldn’t or hadn’t already done it, just that I really want to meet that dog!
