Dog shows are a great place for dog owners to showcase the beauty and skills of their pets. YouTuber Zac Alsop recently decided to enter one with his dog and see how he’ll do. But there was a catch; his dog was actually a robot.
Alsop got himself a Unitree Go1, a bionic quadruped robot that mimics the behavior of a real dog and enlisted famous dog trainer Gina Pink to “train” the mechanical puppy named Roobot. Pink believed that Roobot would have the most chance in the music freestyle dog competition, so Alsop also got dancer and actress Alice Dardenne to help him design the choreography for the show.
While Alsop had high hopes for Roobot, it turned out that the bright lights of a dog show were just too much for him. The robot dog struggled to match the real dogs in one-on-one races and obstacle courses, while just a portion of the audience was impressed with his dance choreography.
“That wasn’t Roobot’s fault. He’s just not real. Perhaps I’m just too focused on the future sometimes to realize what I actually had,” Alsop says at the end of the video before going for a round of fetch with his real dog.
