About

Cupcake Dog is a nickname given to a dog named "Stains," an Australian Shepherd who appeared on a 2009 episode of the Animal Planet television series It's Me or the Dog. Shortly after the episode's premiere, a scene of Stains staring intensely at a plate of cupcakes became a viral video on YouTube, resulting in numerous video edits and remixes.

Origin

On December 29th, 2008, YouTuber^[2] k8lync uploaded a recording of a preview of the upcoming episode of It's Me or the Dog, focusing particularly on a clip of Stains staring at a plate of cupcakes and laughing (shown below). The video gained over 60,000 views in 12 years and is the earliest video of the clip, pre-dating the original air date.

On January 17th, 2009, Season 1 Episode 13 of the U.S. version of It's Me or the Dog,^[6] a show in which a trainer helps correct bad behavior in dogs, aired on Animal Planet. At one point in the episode, the trainer holds a plate of cupcakes in front of Stains' nose in order to show that she's improved his restraint. The dog stares at the cupcakes hypnotically for an extended period of time but does not eat them. On February 18th, the official Animal Planet YouTube^[1] channel uploaded the scene, garnering over 2.4 million views in 12 years (shown below).

On January 23rd, 2009, YouTuber^[3] agentmedia uploaded a video titled, "dramatic cupcake dog" combining the clip of Stains staring at cupcakes with the audio from the Dramatic Chipmunk video, garnering over 1 million views in 12 years (shown below). The video helped inspire numerous edits, which were uploaded to YouTube over the course of the next year.

Spread

On January 29th, the clip of Stains staring at the cupcakes was featured on the E! Channel television show The Soup (clip shown below).

The clip received numerous popular edits over the following years, hitting a peak in search interest in February 2009 with a steady decline afterward. On January 30th, YouTuber^[4] mycreed uploaded a video in which Stains makes a sort of revelation while staring at the cupcakes, garnering over 5.4 million views in 12 years (shown below, left). On August 20th, 2010, YouTuber^[5] devious-smile uploaded a video in which Stains has Vietnam war flashbacks, garnering over 2.2 million views in 11 years (shown below, right).

Following the viral success of Stains' YouTube videos, hypnodog.com (Via WayBackMachine) was founded, with official Stains Merchandise and new Stains videos.^[7]

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References