 A few things about the vortex, we've been at this location since 1994, so we've been building out this funky warehouse theater since then, just piece by piece, bit by bit, and we are celebrating our 25th birthday gala, there's information in your program about that, and that's next Friday and Saturday, so it'll be the 25th anniversary of our very first show ever in Austin, and we're really excited about that. For the kids, we have a Mad Hatter's Fairy Tea Party on Saturday from 5 to 7 on the 11th, so I invite you all to come back, wear your fairy wings, your princess outfits, and your Mad Hatter's, and celebrate with our families, and then the other entertainment, it runs for two nights, it's a full slate of programming, and all of this is to raise money for our new lighting system which we desperately need. And if there's more information about the vortex, you can get on our mailing list if you feel like this yellow form, and there's also what's coming up on our season. So if you all like dogs, please do remember if you haven't done so already to turn off your cell phones, and please no flash photography or texting, it distracts the dogs, alright? And we don't have an intermission in the performance tonight, but the butterfly bar is part of the vortex, and patrizies is part of the vortex, so if you want to stick around afterwards and have something to drink or have dinner, I can't recommend the Italian food if patrizies highly enough. I also want to give a shout out to all of our friends who are watching this performance tonight as being live streamed around the world on HowlRound. So HowlRound, dogs, it seems only appropriate, we want to welcome everybody on HowlRound and say thanks for being there. It may be just a couple of you, but hopefully they're watching from interesting, let us know where you're watching from, we're very interested to know who's watching the show tonight from remote locations. And we're going to be doing that a lot, so if you don't get out to the theater very much, you can check us out. We'll try to put all of our shows up at least once online so you can see it from your house. Thanks again so much, night, Linda. Let's give a big welcome to Circus Chicken Dog. Walks, get to train a dog. I think you can do all that, go get your brother and get ready for the party, and I'll set things up over here, okay? Okay guys. All right. I got the chips, I got the drinks. No, no, no. It's Claren here. I just sent her to a room. Excellent. I got a surprise for her. You got a surprise for her. This is a lot of responsibility, Darren. Sure. She has to feed the dog, just take it for walks. She has to train the dog? No, she doesn't. I'll train the dog. You can train dogs. Don't worry about that. You think you can train dogs? Oh, absolutely. Can you believe it? Well, I don't know. But I've got these two dogs right here. I'm fostering them because they've got so many problems. So let me show you what I can do with these two dogs right here. I mean, look, the way I train the dogs is I observe what they do naturally and I work with that. So I got into the shelter this morning and this dog right here was sleeping through his alarm. The alarm was going off because... She walked right up and she was doing her yoga exercises. Moves was doing downward facing dog. Mouse, they love each other so much. And so the first thing they do when they wake up, when they're both awake and they see each other, for the first time, they always give each other a big hug. Mouse. Of course. And then they always love each other more. Love each other more. I work with. Okay? What problems do you have? Oh, well, yep, sometimes you get so relaxed. But, okay, Mouse, can you lay down? Yeah. Right here, she's always, always being really wiggly. You should see Mouse. Come on, Mouse. He's even worse. You're a dog, of course you hate bass. And Moves promised she would start taking showers all by herself. She promised she was going to take a shower this morning. But does it look like she took a shower? She's still all scratchy, isn't she? She popped it the other day. And she wasn't going to adopt her little broken family. And I've already don't have a mommy. And Moves was like, I don't even know what that means. But Moves did the worst thing she could do. She started jumping on the woman. And so they told me to take the dogs home with me and foster them and get them some training. So that's what I'm doing. You're supposed to prove to me that you can train them there. Oh, right. Yeah, yeah, so I just work on what they can naturally. And watch it. After you let them get their energy out, you can ask them to sit. So I'll tell you what. Here it says Jingles. Is that the name of the jingle? Yeah, okay. I'll give you Jingles back. All right. Put Jingles in the box. Okay. And then I'll call Claire and Fritz. They'll come down for the party, okay? I'll put Jingles in the box. Put her in the box. Okay, okay. Clara and Fritz, come on down. You'll never believe what your godfather brought you. Clara? Oh, wow. Yeah. Move what I got for you, Clara. I got you, the best dog in the whole world. Right here, you take this dog to the circus. That's good. And this dog could be like the man on the flying trapeze. Woo. Okay, you need to train this dog, okay? Okay, you can take this dog on trips with you. I'll tell her. To Paris. And you take it, even get shipped. Now, you can even... Oh, here's something you can't do with a regular dog. You can actually juggle this dog. Whoa. If you'd like to have a dog, you can juggle. That won't be juggling. Juggling. Merry Christmas, Clara. One more. At first, you're going to your room. This isn't what Darren and me talked about, okay? This is a surprise to me, too. There better be something else. There better be something else in the box, okay? There better be something else in the box, okay? Okay, because it just so happens, I did put a dog in here. Woof, woof, woof. Woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof. Na, na, na, na, na, na, na. It's not a real dog. It's just a pumbet. I just wanted to have... I want you to fix this. Okay, okay. All right, okay. Now, I promised earlier he brought something far cuter. And I'm trying to make sure that he takes care of it now, and you're going to love the gift. And we're going to help you take care of it. It's the thing you always wanted, okay? Now it looks like Derrick's taking care of it now and all right we're ready. Are you ready? Are you ready? We're going to open your present. Are you ready? Here we go. All right, let's see. Let's see. Up, up, up, up, up. Wait, Derrick. Why is that box empty? I saw you put a dog in there. No, no, no, no, no. Wait, Derrick. Wait, wait, wait. Tim it over. Maybe it's. Maybe it's. Okay, let's look really carefully. Look. Do you see? Oh no. I promise that we, Derrick got you a dog. We're going to find the dog and then we'll bring it to you, okay? Where's the dog? Go to your room and we'll fix it. Sorry, Clara. Your dad didn't want you to have the dog. What? You put it in the right box. Of course it can happen. Nothing. Sweet. Sweet. We can show up. Yeah, it's the land of the muck record. Sweet. She may not want to go. She may be too scared. Hey, Clara. Let me ask you. How would you feel about going to the land of the muck? We shouldn't talk to him. Aw, the weak link. Okay, yes. Go, go get Lauren. Okay, let me get the Lauren. Me and Derrick have been friends with this power captain a long time ago. I know. I know. It sounds dangerous. But this is a friendly power captain and his first mate is kind of his weak link. Right now he's kind of grumpy. But if we convince the first mate that you're a good person, then you can come on the ship. This is Lauren McCall. Yes. Now, Lauren wasn't always makes me play the part of the pirate captain. He walked right up to Lauren. He's looking for new cons here to walk right up to Lauren and said, hello. Pirate said, hey, how would you like to be a pirate? And Lauren's like, no. And he's like, are you sure? And she's like, no, maybe I better bribe her. And he was like, okay, I'm glad I have. And Lauren was like, do I like lollipop? And she broke out in song. She was like, why would you like to be a pirate? So she made up a song about it. So she would remember it goes one parties and she would sing happy. That was what she broke in with. She was like, she was like jokes get. She didn't make much money with knock, knock jokes out. Here's Lauren doing an impression of a dog. See, she's a fleabit mongrel. It's hilarious. She pretty much had her degree in aerospace engineering. And this is what she learned to do. Three, you know, she'd come to where she really liked that pirate captain. And she was starting to fall in love with him. And so she would blow him kisses. She would blow the pirate captain kisses. If she likes you, she will blow you a kiss. So let's see if she'll blow you a kiss, Claire. Are you going to blow Claire a kiss, Lauren? You are. Okay, blow a kiss. Now, if she really likes you, she'll actually give you a kiss, Claire. So, Lauren, you want to give me a kiss? All right. I don't want you to be jealous, Claire, but Lauren's going to come over and kiss me. Oh, no, wait a minute. She doesn't want to kiss me. She wants to bite me. Ow! Let you go off to the land of the muckcracker. Sweet! All right, Lauren. Now, you just follow. This time as well, you need stories. Let me introduce you to Captain. Have you come up here? His name is Captain Sandwich. My call for the last must go below. Like a store-biddle. With your quick. She had the small. King. As I ate them all, the time.. I ate them all. And then I met a maiden. The fares in the land. They promised her the new. I got my tools. I ate them all, the time. I ate them all, my summer. How do you control my life, shape my heart? No more, no more, no more, no more, no more, no more. So to show everybody just how well trained and handling our dogs are, and the connection Darren has. And when Darren says, stay somewhere, they're going to stay there, no matter what. Yeah, when you see how out of control these dogs are, the door's running around, they're jumping on stuff. So I taught the dogs to stay on this box so that, okay, it's fine to one little space. So I told Moose and Mouse, y'all, stay on the box, and that way, like the doorbell rings, you can go into the doorbell, and, oh, yeah, sometimes this on is under. She gets confused with prepositions. Mouse, mouse, so, oh, maybe she's under the box. Maybe she's under the box, yeah. Mouse. Oh, man, what's the dog, Darren? Oh, wait, I used it the whole time. There he is, come on, that's perfect. Yeah, I don't know how that happened. Oh, it's okay, we'll move on. Okay, it goes to show how well trained our dogs are. Now, one of the things that makes our circus really kind of intriguing and new is that we always bring in new acts and new talent. For example, we just got two new puppies that we're bringing into the circus. Yeah, well, we don't like to have, like, old dog being in the old chaos and stuff. Hey, Darren, how about I talk and you get the dogs? All right, squirrels, those are their spirit animals. Squirrel. That one is squirrel and this one is coyote. It's so that, you know, he starts getting anywhere close to you. Run, okay? All right, total chaos. Don't say no, it is true. Okay, this is like crazy. So, I think he's been regressing to, if you sit. That's coyote, they wear him out a lot more than us. So, yes, he goes for like 10 times more of a walk than we do. We take him for a walk. There you go, good dog. Now, yes, he is having problems. I just recently, I heard this thing called a woman there. Oh, yeah, is there any smells that Kelly really likes? Maybe I'll have to calm him down. Yeah, okay, it's gonna gross you out, but you wanna know what his favorite smell in the whole world is? I don't know, actually destroyed backstage? Yes, yes. And I see you got a new trash can lid. Well, I was trying to make sure Kelly couldn't get into it. Yeah, he doesn't know how to work this one, but I've been working with him on how to open different kinds of trash can lids. Why would you work with him on that? Well, you know, because he likes it. If you want to, you wanna find things that the dogs like to do. Can we find things I like them to do? Sure. Well, that's a not, okay? We like to go with positives. See, oh, he figured it out. You just bought that, Derek? Yeah, well, you should have gotten a harder one. Okay, he's just like hard for you. You can't get in there. Maybe you can wind up having a crash, since you love trash so much. Now, this dog right here, this is Squirrel. Okay, okay, he's got a, I say he. Okay, it's a green vest, because he's such a new dog. He's our little green horn. You see, he was aspiring to be a long horn, but Squirrel, Squirrel is more than a boy, so I get confused sometimes, but he gender identifies as a girl. Not so much because of the gender, I don't think, but because he loves the term Squirrel girl. Squirrel girl. Sometimes he'll sit. She, yeah. It's to go around things. He's tricks up. I've never seen him do this before. Okay, the first time I've ever seen him do this. Hey, Gary, where'd you put this at our show? Come here, come here. What else would you want to do here today? A song for my sister Clara. Oh, that's very sweet. Say what? What were they called tricks? It's the first time a dog has taught a human a trick. Yeah. So, Gary, can you tell us a little about the touching? This is a cowboy. Yes, well Moose told me that cowboys in the old west used to jump rope than kids today do. So, I'm gonna show you how Moose taught me to jump rope. This is how Moose told me a cowboy would spin his rope, and this is how a cowboy jumps rope. Grab the rope, and Moose started spinning the rope. Spin, spin, spin, spin. That eventually they rolled and taken out. What? After the mouse came some of his mouse maintenance. No, I know, no, no. I know you thought they were gross, and I was pretty good with them, but. But after jumping till it turns out they actually really liked being juggled. Oh, really? It's like a roller coaster ride. Oh, so they sprinted us into juggling them? Kind of, yeah. I don't know, they didn't know they liked it back then, but they do now. And so they wanted to join our circus as part of an act to be juggled. Okay, you think you could do that? Sure. I better put the dogs away, because they might like juggling. What? Okay, you know how they like eating juggling? I guess we both just go off stage for a second. Okay, oh, that's one thing I can't do, sorry. You're probably gonna get hit. Do the same trick, but better. Found this porcelain tri-bone. Wow, it's got beautiful color. I know, right? And so, one leg, no one seems impressed. Wow. What do you want to do to top that? Probably nothing. I doubt it, yes. Likely, no. Okay, oh, well, I don't know. Here's something more dangerous than you might think. Wait, my mouth is open. Oh, good. I'm sorry. One of my props. I'm so conscious, called a unicycle. Where did you get this? I got it at a bicycle shop. I thought it was half off. Of course. See, I'm gonna bounce this on my face. Yeah. Have you written it yet? Well, I can't actually write it, but I've been practicing all day long, and I had one of those Strava devices, a GPS device, and I was going along the wall, back and forth, all day long, trying to figure out how to write it, and I never got to where I could write it, but I was trying really hard, sweating profusely, all day long, and that GPS device said that I've gone 25 miles. 25 miles. Yes. Sweating profusely. Yes. Sitting here. Right. And I swear it up with my face. Remember how you ate all the fresh fruits and vegetables? I like bananas, okay? Yeah, I know, but there was only one thing I could find left to eat. It wasn't the three cans of beans. Oh! I was making shorts yesterday. Is that anything? I'm regretting this now. Okay, all right, here we go. Can I change where I'm gonna fell? No? All right. It's a good thing. That's it. Ready? Okay. I was not asking you, I was asking me, because it's a little... Right, right. It's a two step program for writing a unicycle. Yeah. What? Step one is to get on the unicycle. Okay. Step two is, you don't fall off. Whoa, I never, you know, that makes so much sense. Right? All right, let's see. You get on, and you don't fall off. It's so easy. What with those banana peels? You know me, I throw them wherever I want to put them. There's a banana peel on my pedal. Oh no, my foot is slipping off the pedal. Pass something on to the circus. Really? Yeah, for a very good price. You didn't tell me. It's... I'm gonna pour you out. Oh. Oh. So how much was it? I don't know. Which side goes out? It was only $5,000. Oh. Man, he really liked us. Yeah, he did. So I'll tell you what. Why don't you play a little musical instrument on that thing over there. Challenging balancing pose over K. Okay? All together? All together right now. And at the same time? Yes. And simultaneously? And to make things easier for you, I'll stay on stage, so at least I'll have ICANN. Okay. To be part of the special show, with special night lights, to help kind of lull them into a nice sleep. Is that okay to you? Now, Darren's gonna help us out. We'll go to sleep, and in the morning we'll figure out what we're gonna do about it, okay? All right. Good night, Clara.