When the dog's right foot is pressed it moves and sings a pop version of a calypso from Trinidad entitled 'Who let the dogs out'.  The pop version of this calypso was a notable example of a calypso going global.

Here is a toy dog which sings, and moves - in a rather sinuous way -  to,  the globally popular song ‘Who let the dogs out?’. The dog was made in China and sold in Britain in the early 2000s, when versions of the song were widely played.

‘Doggie’, as the original song was entitled, was written and recorded by Anslem Douglas, a popular and accomplished calypso artist in the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. The recording was released for 1998 carnival in Trinidad and proved a great success.

In the following two years it caught the attention and interest of a whole range of singers and producers outside T & T who were keen to record the song. Douglas decided to sell  the song rights to the Baha Men, who in 2000 brought out what is probably the most popular recording of the song. It won a Grammy for Best Dance Recording in 2001.

Through the early 2000s the song was recorded in different versions and styles by a host of recording artists internationally and was used in a remarkable number of films.

The original calypso recording by Douglas has a sweeter musical tone to it and is rhythmically closer to calypso and soca dance beat in Caribbean carnival than other and later versions. It is lyrically very much in the calypso tradition, dealing with a topical subject - how women view how men view them – and wittily spicing up the song’s content with double meanings. The burden of the song is that if women see men as dogs, maybe men will just be dogs!

Since the beginning of commercial sound recording, from time to time a calypso has been picked up by a producer outside the Caribbean and recorded with great commercial and financial success for the record company and /or for artists who have sung it, while the original writer and singer is left unacknowledged and without recompense. The best known example of this is probably the case of ‘Rum and Coca Cola’, a calypso written
and composed by Lord Invader (Rupert Grant) and Lionel Belasco respectively, which was very popular in Trinidad in1943. It was picked up there by a visiting American entertainer who later claimed authorship of  the song and copyrighted his version of it back in the U.S.A. The Andrews Sisters, top pop stars of their day, subsequently recorded the song, which in 1945 became America’s top single of the year.

Eventually Grant and Belasco successfully sued the American entertainer. Although many Trinidadians were reputed to be disappointed at Anslem Douglas’s decision to sell the rights to his song, his action may reflect a lesson well learned.

This dog, basically a toy, offers insight into a commercial world in which a  calypso from the tiny island of Trinidad can be reworked to reach the pop charts of countries all round the world, while a factory in China spots a great commercial opportunity manufacturing a furry bulldog which can sing the song and ‘dance’ to it. Interesting in itself, the dog is even more interesting for its backstory and what can be learnt from it!