Lusy Imbergerova and her dog Deril first found fame on Italy’s Got Talent as a dance duo. But it turns out there’s an entire dog dancing circuit that culminates in championships.

Despite winning second place (out of 10 competitors) in the 2016 Federation Cynologique Internationale (FCI) World Dog Dancing Championships in Moscow, Russia, their video has been viewed an impressive 18.2 million times. Meanwhile, we’re still trying to figure out how formal dog dancing is a thing we’ve been unaware of all this time.

Now, to be fair, Lusy and Deril’s performance is pretty special.

Dog Dancing Guidelines

One part of the show is called the Heelwork to Music (HTM) routine and it involves both dog and handler dancing together in close proximity, moving “as one entity.”

But it’s the Freestyle part of the show that we’re interested in. You can find details in the handy 19-page guide to FCI Dog Dancing Competitions by clicking the first link here – it makes for an interesting read. But we’ll spare you the detail and just say competitors must do 75% of their routine Freestyle and 25% HTM. But Freestyle is truly free and involves just about any moves that don’t jeopardize the dog’s health.

Presentation, content, artistic interpretation, and animal welfare are the key components of any Freestyle routine.

You learn something new every day, right?

The Performance

Lusy and Deril chose a military theme for their performance, with Lusy as a soldier who gets hit by a grenade and Deril as her rescuer.

But it all begins in the “barracks” while the soldiers are asleep.

After waking up, it’s time for a workout, so the duo starts with some push-ups.

You’ve gotta stay fit after all!

Lusy also gets some sit-ups in during her morning routine before they go out and launch grenades at the enemy.

And as you would expect, Deril is the perfect trainer.

After a little galavanting around the stage, things take a turn. Lusy is hit by enemy fire. And as her only comrade on the scene, it’s up to Deril to perform some live-saving maneuvers.

Apparently, he’s well-versed in CPR and begins with chest compressions.

But Lusy’s injuries are grim.

Luckily, they’ve been through this before and there’s nothing going on that would truly stress out the dog.

Next comes an attempt at mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

And that does the trick!

A Second-Place Finish

A dog performing CPR is pretty darn impressive. In fact, commenters on Lusy’s Facebook video of the performance went wild for it, saying, for example, “So beautiful! the best performance that I have ever seen!” (We’re not sure if it’s the best dog dancing performance she’s ever seen or best overall performance.)

While the duo came in second place, they were happy with their showing.

The winners of the 2016 Championships were Yvonne Belin and her dog Alice, who performed a rousing routine to Queen’s classic “Don’t Stop Me Now” that you can view here.

If for some reason you’d like to get your dog involved in “musical canine freestyle,” you can start by going to the Canine Freestyle Federation website (there’s also one for the UK). There are “guilds” you can join from Florida to Minnesota.

But first, be sure to scroll down to see Deril and Lusy’s viral video.

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Source: Facebook – Dogdance team LUSY e DERIL, YouTube – Videos from Freestyle&HTM World Championship 2016 Moscow, FCI International, Facebook – Lusy Imbergerova