A Japanese man who spent £12,480 transforming himself into a dog has been out in public again, despite everyone on the internet calling him a freak, a weirdo, mentally ill, and other unkind terms. Although I guess when you’ve spent £12k+ on a custom made border collie costume, you’ve got to commit to your fetish no matter what anyone else thinks.

Things got even weirder than usual on his latest excursion, though. The man/dog, known only as ‘Toco’, was being guided around the streets of Tokyo by reporter Karolina Kaminska, who was acting as his ‘owner’ and encouraging children to pet him.

One kid was brave enough to briefly pet Toco, though the mother of another kid said her son was “a bit scared”. Good instincts, I reckon.

Judging by the comments under the video, Toco does seem to have something of a fanbase in his native Japan, which I guess is the one place you can get away with this sort of thing without being completely exiled from society:

Previously, in another video, Toco attempted to socialise with other dogs, who immediately sensed something was completely off and didn’t want to play with him:

The comments under that one were a little more unforgiving:

Toco has since put the call out to other ‘therians’ (a person who feels they are something other than a human) out there who may want to hang out with him, whether they’re a dog or anything else. So far, he hasn’t had much luck though.

Still, it’s early days for this sort of thing. Toco may be something of a trailblazer and the world just hasn’t realised it yet. Give it a couple years and he’ll probably be competing at the Westminster Dog Show with the biological dogs.

For a look at the winner of 2023’s prestigious ugliest dog competition, click HERE. Well-deserved.