PUPPY LOVE
Man pays €13,000 to dress up as a dog for YouTube, TikTok videos
A Japanese dog lover known only as Toco has accrued a healthy social-media following by filming videos in his hyper-realistic ‘dog suit’.
A paw-sitively dog-obsessed individual has fetched a sizeable social-media following by dressing up for videos in a canine costume that cost him a small fortune.
The Japanese man, known only as Toco, spent around €13,000 on the ultra-lifelike ‘dog suit’, which mimics the appearance of the Collie breed. Weighing around 4kg, the suit took the company commissioned to create it almost a month and a half to make.
Videos gaining millions of views on YouTube, TikTok
You can watch Toco in action in his dog costume on his YouTube channel @I_want_to_be_an_animal, which has nearly 56,000 subscribers, and his TikTok account @toco_evee, which has accrued just over 260,000 followers.
In one video, which has amassed almost three million views on YouTube, Toco can be seen strolling the streets of a Japanese neighbourhood on all fours. “I finally get to fulfill a dream I’ve had since I was a little child,” the video’s caption reads. “Turning into a dog and going for a walk outside!”
“People tell me they’d like to do the same”
Toco’s social-media posts have received numerous comments from internet users - with some applauding his videos and others dismissing him as barking mad.
In an interview with the Spanish media outlet EFE this week, he said: “Among the positive messages, some people tell me that they’d like to do the same. That has allowed me to see that there are others like me.”
“When I’m wearing the costume, I feel happy”
While Toco has told his family and closest friends about his pet project, he prefers to hide his true identity from the wider world for fear of exposing himself to a public hounding.
“My family knows about it, of course,” he said to EFE. “But I haven’t told many friends about it - just three or four people. They were surprised by it, but their reaction was positive.”
He concludes: “When I’m wearing the costume, I feel happy because I’ve made my dream come true. It would be a shame not to get up to anything while I’m in the suit, so I make videos and have a lot of fun.”