Wichita rescue dog and his amazing cookie balancing stunt is making him a quarantine star
Becky Reynolds has lots of endearing nicknames for her chunky rescue dog, Berko.
Berzerko. Jerko. Pot Roast Head. Big Booty Judy.
But over the past 16 days, Berko the American Bully has also become endeared to a growing number of Facebook fans. The 4-year-old boy with exceptional self-control and extraordinary balancing abilities has, in fact, become a bit of a local quarantine social media star.
Berko, who Reynolds rescued from the Kansas Humane Society and named after a character from her favorite movie “Empire Records,” has been helping his mom and her Facebook friends fight the stress of the past few weeks by gamely performing an impressive trick each night.
It started March 25, the day that Sedgwick County’s stay-at-home order — a result of the coronavirus pandemic — took effect.
Reynolds, a well-known Wichita bartender, had been temporarily laid off from her jobs at The Monarch and Public at the Brickyard a week earlier. She and her boyfriend, Jason Burnett, were at home trying to think of ways to inject a little humor into the sad situation.
They immediately thought of Berko and his amazing ability to balance food on his nose, sitting perfectly still until Reynolds gives him the signal that it’s okay to eat. When he gets the go-ahead, Berko frequently flips the food into the air and tries — and usually fails — to catch it. Then he chases his treat down and chomps with glee.
“I looked at Berko and said, ‘You’re going to have to get a job, man, and start pulling your weight around here,’” Reynolds said.
The couple decided to balance one of Berko’s doggie bacon strips on his nose that night, take a photo and post it to Facebook. Their plan was to add another treat every day as long as the quarantine lasted, just to see what Berko was made of. Eventually, Oreo-shaped healthy doggie cookies were added to the stack.
Thursday was Day 16, and somehow, Pot Roast Head is still going strong. On Thursday evening, Reynolds posted her most recent photo of Berko’s quarantine stunt, which showed him splayed out on the couch, perfectly still with head erect. Two cookies were stacked on the bridge of his nose, another four on his forehead and an impressive stack of 10 more on the top of his head.
“Man, for your sake, Becky, or the dog’s I hope that they let you go back to work soon! Lol!,” commented one of Reynolds’ Facebook friends.
“You and Berko both!” Reynolds replied.
But Berko, she said, really seems to enjoy the daily stunt, which has been happening just before dinnertime each night. Big Booty Judy is excessively food motivated, she said, and he seems to sense when the hour has arrived.
Reynolds said she gives him one cookie before they start, “just to build up the anticipation,” and he gets three more once the deed is done. The balancing act is getting more difficult each day, but Berko is patient, she said, and on the worst day, it takes only three attempts.
She’s going to have to get creative if this is going to continue much longer, Reynolds said. She may have to eventually involve other doggie body parts, like paws.
And she’s going to have to get her hands on more dog cookies, too.
But the stacking stunt has been a bright spot in her household each day, and judging by the reactions she’s getting on social media — where a single photo usually gets a couple of hundred “likes” — it’s been a bright spot for many people she knows, too.
“I’m so surprised at how many people say they look forward to it,” she said. “It’s so much fun. And people have gotten so much more involved than I thought they would. It’s just blowing me away.”
This story was originally published April 10, 2020 at 12:06 PM.
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