Meet Dexter, ‘the happiest dog around’ who can balance pretty much any food you can think of on his clever little head.
Dexter, four, has amassed over 660,000 followers across the world on TikTok thanks to his special skill, after his owners, brothers Benjamin Watts, 24, and Oliver Watts, 18, started posting clips of him balancing everything from stacks of oranges to a stick of butter.
Benjamin said: ‘His balancing trick is something we figured out he could do from when he was about one year old, so we immediately tried to teach him to perfect the skill.
‘His followers on TikTok certainly seem to love the content we post.’
But Dexter doesn’t work for free – he knows he’s going to get a tasty treat for his trouble.
Benjamin said: ‘He’ll do it for anyone as long as there’s a fantastic treat waiting for him afterwards.
‘His usual go-to favourite foods are chicken, cheese and sausages, so we always make sure to have some for when he is doing a trick.
‘One of the main reasons he’s so talented is because he is completely food orientated and will do anything for tasty food.’
Now, Dexter has earned over 8.6 million likes on TikTok, with a lot of videos hitting well over a million views at a time.
Benjamin said: ‘He has tonnes of viral videos now, with his most viewed video on something like 7.3 million views now which is amazing.
‘He always gets comments saying how amazing, cute and talented he is.’
The family first got Dexter in May 2017 when he was just eight weeks old.
Benjamin said: ‘He’s an incredibly loving and calm dog
‘As he’s a retriever, whenever anyone comes home, he’ll quickly run to hold a blanket or a toy in his mouth and greet you whilst his tail wags in a windmill fashion.’
It took Benjamin just a week to teach Dexter how to balance things, beginning with the command ‘stay’.
‘Once he mastered this,’ said Benjamin, ‘then we could put things on his head and say “stay”, we would repeat this word and then eventually take the balancing object off his head and treat him.
‘He knows that if he doesn’t stay still then he won’t get a treat until he does, and he’s now got incredibly good at it.’
Benjamin believes teaching dogs tricks is more than just good fun.
He explained: ‘As soon as we got him, we started training him, as not only does this create an attentive dog, but also stimulates their minds keeping them busy and happy.
‘He’s very clever and as soon as he learnt the basics, we started to push the boat out.
‘With the balancing, it was no different.’
As well as balancing stuff on his head, Dexter’s other hobbies include tug of war, and chasing rabbits, pheasants, ducks and squirrels while he’s out for a walk – regardless of whether he has to jump a fence or into a river to go after them.
Since joining the Watts home, Benjamin said Dexter has become ‘the focal point of the family’.
He explained: ‘We’ve often described him as the burning fire in the family home as he brings that warmth and joy.
‘Dexter is wholly reliant on us – we have the responsibility to protect him and give him a healthy lifestyle which means watching his diet and giving him two countryside walks a day.
‘Dexter, and golden retrievers more widely, rely on social connections – he needs us just as much as we need him which is why in the house he lies down in the middle of the kitchen where everyone walks past.’
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