Peanut Butter, the now-famous speedrunning dog and certified good boy, underwent nine months of rigorous training to become the world-class player he is today.
For the uninitiated, Peanut Butter is the terribly cute shiba inu who went viral last year thanks to his performance at the Awesome Games Done Quick charity speedrunning event, where he beat the 160-year-old (dog years) SNES platformer Gyromite in record time. I say record time because Peanut Butter is the only champion to attempt a dog-assisted run of the game.
Peanut Butter didn’t become a miracle dog by pure luck. “Teaching him to push the button was literally day one,” JSR, Peanut Butter’s owner and content creator, said in an interview with Aftermath. “Day one, he nailed it,” but teaching Peanut Butter to avoid distractions took nine full months of daily training.
“The hardest part is not only getting the dogs to hold the button long enough for you to do what you need to do in the game, but also getting them to release the button and not wander off and grab a tennis ball,” JSR continued. “That was probably the hardest part: getting him to sit and pay attention to me for 20 to 30 minutes at a time. Now he’s able to hold (the button) for 30 seconds before giving up. He doesn’t wander off. I’ve had him streaming for hours playing games.”
The practice paid off at Summer Games Done Quick 2024 last week, as Peanut Butter completed a “win a game” speedrun of Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball with “a 2-run home run in overtime on the first pitch,” according to the tweet above. I don’t understand baseball lingo, but I guess that means something to someone reading.