Can this dog really HYPNOTISE you?
... or is it Simon Cowell’s silliest con trick yet! JANE FRYER meets the hypnodog from Britain’s Got Talent
Princess is a five-yearold German spitz. she has long soft fur, a smart black, white and diamante harness, terrible fishy breath — and can slay members of the public by the dozen. not, perhaps surprisingly, with a blast of her breath. Oh no. Just one hard stare from her dark brown eyes is enough, it seems, to make men, women, children, TV presenters Ant and Dec and even simon cowell (so he insists) collapse at her teeny black feet in hypnotised heaps.
Meet Princess the Hypnodog — the only hypnodog in the world, i’m told by her very proud owner Krystyna Lennon, 40, a hypnotist from Guiseley, West Yorkshire.
Princess caused mayhem on iTV’s Britain’s Got Talent when she hypnotised nine members of the talent show’s audience, including Ant and Dec. And then she had a go at judge cowell, with Krystyna promising that Princess would not only put him under a trance, but also make him ‘nicer’.
And so, duly, the king of telly kneeled before Princess, stared into her eyes, ducked the wafts of stinky breath and then . . . well, precisely nothing. simon did not crumple in a trance. He didn’t even close his eyes.
But when he returned to his seat, he couldn’t stop yawning. Apparently, soon after the cameras stopped rolling, he complained of feeling unwell, collapsed on his judge’s desk and paramedics were called.
it was all very dramatic and, many enraged viewers claim, a cynical set-up. since then, the internet and Twittersphere have been in overdrive with complaints that Princess the Hypnodog is one contrivance too many, even for such an over-hyped show.
so, here i am asking Krystyna and, of course, Princess (who is studiously avoiding my eye, however hard i try to catch hers): was it a set-up? Were the audience members pretending? Was cowell faking it? Was it Krystyna doing the hypnotising all along?
Princess is sensibly keeping schtum, so all explanations are left to Krystyna.
‘i’m really not sure,’ she says. ‘ simon passing out all happened a bit later — i’d left the stage.’ in fact, she was told: ‘cowell has collapsed! You need to come back!’
‘i thought, surely you need a paramedic, not a dog.’ she says she feared cowell had suffered a heart attack. ‘i thought: “Oh my God, there’s going to be a lawsuit!” ’
SHe found the TV star sl umped on a t able surrounded by paramedics, bouncers and his fellow BGT judges. ‘so i went over and counted him back out (of the hypnotic state), as i normally would, and he came round. He looked as if he’d been sleeping and was a bit confused, which is how someone would be in that state.’
Gosh! High drama. not that Princess seems remotely bothered. Or, indeed, interested in anything other than being stroked and cuddled by Krystyna. But then Princess is unlike other dogs.
she sleeps in a four-poster bed with pink curtains and rarely rises before 10am. And then it’s just a nip out for quick wee before heading back to bed until lunch. she has a wardrobe bursting with glamorous doggy outfits, diamante hair clips, leads and dazzling collars.
not for her, horsemeat or Pedigree chum. she eats only raw beef or pork mince and mixed vegetables.
‘ she rejected some sausages because they were herbed and served on polystyrene,’ says Krystyna. ‘she’d never eat off polystyrene!’
indeed. This Princess drinks water from a glass and eats from one of her ornate bowls — today’s is porcelain, decorated with small crowns.
she also, i am assured, possesses an astonishingly, trance-enducingly hard stare. Just not today, it seems. she’s still avoiding me.
Yet it was her very hard stare that first alerted Krystyna last year to Princess’s potential.
‘i was eating a sandwich and she was opposite me and really, really staring. i caught her gaze and thought: “Oh God!” she did it for about 20 seconds. not many dogs will look a stranger in the eyes,’ says Krystyna. ‘That makes her special.’
Krystyna knew what she was looking for. Because — and whisper this, so Princess doesn’t get offended — it turns out that while she’s the only hypnodog in the world, she isn’t the first. The pioneer was Oscar, a black labrador with a very hard stare, owned by Kystyna’s uncle, Hugh Lennon. Hugh and Oscar took their double act around the country and Krystyna helped out.
After Hugh retired and Oscar went to the big kennel in the sky, Krystyna hunted high and low for another dog to step into his pawprints.
‘i was looking for a big dog. Another labrador with a dominant style. But when i saw Princess’s stare, i knew.’
And that was that. Within weeks, they were on the road, hypnotising the public. ‘it worked first time. she was brilliant straight away.’
so good, it turned out, that every so often someone in the audience falls out of their seat in a trance.
‘That’s not uncommon. And a few weeks ago, a lady nearly fell off the stage when she went under. i make them kneel when Princess looks at them so they can’t hurt themselves when they go under.’
so, how does it work? Does Princess actually do anything? isn’t it more a case of Krystyna, a trained hypnotherapist, doing the hypnotising and setting up a quick stare by Princess as the trigger?
‘no! she does it herself! But they have to be relaxed. it’s not going to happen to everyone. You’ve got to be open to it and susceptible. Highly susceptible.’
so when BGT were holding auditions in Manchester, Krystyna decided to try their luck.
But things are never quite how they seem on telly. Krystyna explains the nine volunteers seemingly plucked out of the audience were part of a bigger group of 15 who had been roadtested backstage by Krystyna and Princess for ‘suggestibility’.
A couple were weeded out due to nerves. Others didn’t react quickly enough. ‘You don’t want someone swaying around for minutes like simon cowell. it’s boring. You want immediate results.’
What also was not shown was that Krystyna/Princess hypnotised the first three people (including Ant and Dec) to forget the number seven existed, sending their counting awry; the second three to believe the first three were naked; and the last three to think the second three had made a terrible smell.
Or that, in all the excitement of the audition, Krystyna made a terri- ble mistake. ‘i forgot to remove the suggestions (hypnotic commands) before they left the stage.’
And so backstage, she says, the volunteers nearly came to blows — particularly those insisting the three ‘naked’ volunteers (including Ant and Dec) put some clothes on.
‘They were saying “This is disgusting,” and jumping up and down. i had to separate them. One man was saying: “enough is enough!” A woman was complaining: “it’s not right. i need to find someone to complain to.” i was surprised they didn’t broadcast any of that on TV.’
Or, indeed, the bit when simon cowell, known for his high-waisted trousers, came round and his fellow judges started teasing him by saying: ‘You’ve been asleep for ten years and your trousers are back in fashion.’
THe scenes they did show made great TV and gave BGT a ratings boost. But it produced a nasty backlash against Krystyna, claiming she and Princess were frauds. Does it upset her?
‘no. so many people doubt hypnosis that sometimes i get frustrated. But people have operations under hypnosis! And yet still people don’t believe and i don’t know why. They don’t understand.’
i try once more to catch Princess’s eye and fail miserably. so, instead, i admire her soft coat, the result of a regular ‘ bath and blast’ — a wash and blow dry — at her local doggy parlour before a massage with 100 per cent organic coconut oil.
And, er, any chance she could hypnotise me?
‘ no, not really. This isn’t very relaxing for her. she’s not really in her comfort zone.’
so back to BGT: with the benefit of all Krystyna’s experience, does she think that Ant and Dec were genuinely ‘under’ when they passed out on the floor?
‘Who knows? They looked as if they were under.’
And simon cowell? Was he really hypnotised or just faking it for the ratings?
‘i think what happened is that when he went back to sit down, he let his guard down and he went under,’ she says.
And when he came round, had Princess made him nicer?
‘Yes, he was chatting away for ages — asking loads of questions and waving a lot. Like a normal person. But he refused to look us in the eye again!’