Thanks to the over 2,000 people who participated in today’s mission in Brooklyn. If you were there, please leave an Agent Report in the comments. I know there are thousands of funny stories waiting to be told. Also leave links to any photos you might have taken. We will be posting photos from our official photographers later today, and we hope to have our video up in a week or so.
Agent Nicholson’s Photos
Agent Sokoler’s Photos
For those of you who were not there– we passed out over 2,000 “invisible dog” leashes and had everyone go for a nice Sunday walk in Brooklyn. If you were anywhere within a one mile radius of the Bergen St. stop in Cobble Hill today, you would have seen all types of folks very seriously walking their very silly dogs.
The invisible dog toy was invented in the 1970s in the Brooklyn factory that served as our meeting point today. No Longer Empty and The Invisible Dog art space were nice enough to loan us the vintage dogs for an afternoon of fun.
Thanks again to everyone who participated!
I loved once it got going this guy was on his cell phone saying to someone, “Dude, there’s like 80,000 invisible dogs walking around!” HAHA!
Most people were interested in knowing names, pedigrees, and most of all, where the dogs were from. Cars just remained at signals while drivers waited to hear what in hell was going on – and it took quite some honking to make sure they moved. Lots of smiles, thumbs up, and compliments for my dog Tashi – it was sad to have to give him up.
I had to use my special invisible gloves with napkins to clean up after my dog. I was asked by many to make sure I did it properly – apparently invisible dog poo is a big problem in Brooklyn :)
The fact that many shops made their premises “dog friendly” while we walked around was pretty awesome. Most kids wanted to pet our dogs (only one seemed to purposefully want to harm mine), and I remember talking with some other dog-walkers at Starbucks about how people just didn’t seem to see the point.
We had people getting their dog water at Starbucks, and making a real effort to ensure the premises were not spoiled.
All in all, brilliant fun. Brookyln never saw what was barking all afternoon :)
It was so hard to keep from laughing sometimes. My favorite encounter was in Barnes & Nobles, where this one man came up to me to question the dogs:
Men- “I have to ask what is going on?”
Me- “I’m trying to find a Book”
Men- “No, I mean the leash with the dog, where did you get it from?”
Me- “Oh I bought it at Petco, I’m sure they have it at others but this one was from the one by Union Square”
Never have I seen a guy more stomped and perplexed before lol.
I went with a friend, we named our dogs Clinton and Hiliary, Clinton was a friendly snoodle. Got stopped by numerous people wanting to pet them, compliment the dogs, and take pictures. Even a bus driver was looking in awe of the dogs. One lady who couldn’t figure it out called us psychos!
Good day for dog walking in Brooklyn!
We encountered many odd stares and crooked smiles this afternoon while walking our dog Fluffy, an invisible three legged mutt we rescued from an ad off CraigsList. . . or so the story went.
Most of the Brooklynites we encountered simply smiled, children yelled to their parents they wanted one too and two girls after photographing Fluffy asked if it was ok to pet her.
My dog’s name was Duncan, and some lady somehow got into a conversation with me and my friend about having a child and the responsibilities of a kid.
How come every passerby I encountered was totally mean to me? This also wasn’t a very fun event to go to alone =/
i have to agree with you on the alone part, i too went alone, but thats just more of a reason to meet new people.
Double agreed.
I went by myself too. I really didnt meet anyone, but did talk to a couple people from time to time. In a way it was better to be alone because there where too many people walking invisible dogs together lol Lets try to get together one the next one!
Its because people who are actually from brooklyn hate you.
Why don’t you move back to your own city?
I’ve been in Brooklyn for ten years, and work 75 hours a week at a construction company. Excuse me for taking two hours to have fun. Brooklyn needs less pissants like you.
People got so frustrated when we wouldn’t tell them what this was for.
“Where’d you get those?”
“What, our dogs?”
“Yeah, those.”
“Jersey. We do things differently in Jersey.”
lol ha ha nice, yeah some guy call me “idiot” really frustrated lol when asking me where i got “it” and i reply igot him since he was born from a friend lol
Man with child in stroller: Why are you walking an imaginary dog?
Me: (very offended) What do you mean?
Man with child in stroller: Your dog…it’s imaginary.
Me: How would you feel if I called your child imaginary?
haha, nice!
That’s hysterical.
Hahaha, nice!!
Bo and I had a great afternoon checking out Carroll Gardens with our 1 and 1/2 year old cocker spaniel, Dagger. I loved that local businesses got into the event putting out water bowls and “pet friendly” signs. The best experience was in Carroll Park. Several people were out walking dogs and we watched as little kids were drawn to this. One particular boy (see link) was enthralled with an invisible dog which he chased around the park and, in return, seemed to let chase him. We even had a little girl walk up to us, pet our dog and tell us she couldn’t see him.
Pretty quickly into the mission we began seeing dog references all over the Smith St. area. We spent a lot of our afternoon snapping pictures of Dagger in front of these dog reference. Check out our pictures: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2043298&id=32000439&l=0122df2e30
Thanks to IE for selecting a really fun event and to all the on-lookers for their priceless reactions.
Found my brother and I in a few pics, hope you don’t mind we tagged ourselves. =-D
Once as Agent Lanz and I were walking down the street with our dogs (mine was Scooter, a Jack Russel Terrier; his was Tundra, a five-month-old Siberian Husky), we overheard a woman on her cell phone:
“Hey, remember those videos I showed you of this group called Improv Everywhere doing the No Pants Subway Ride? Well, they’re here now, and they’re out walking hundreds of invisible dogs.”
We found it difficult to contain our laughter. Fortunately, it was a side street, so there weren’t any other people around to tell.
I was surprised at how many people were asking if it was some kind of protest. Some thought it was related to businesses not being dog-friendly, others thought it was related to people not cleaning up after their dogs. We informed them that no, we were just walking our dogs. Was there a protest? We hadn’t heard about it.
The only time I broke character was when a woman came up to me and kicked Scooter in the collar. I didn’t have the gall to get angry and ask her what was wrong with her for kicking my dog. Oh well.
My boyfriend and I participated in this and it was tons of fun! We had many people talk to us and a lot of stores were dog friendly. Even the old bookstore.
Some people asked where we got our dogs and either we would say the pet shop, or down on Bergen Street. At one point I thought I was clever and said PetCo. Unfortunately they asked which PetCo.
One person asked me how much I paid for my Rottweiler. A few people in cars even asked what was going on. One person liked my dog, another was the PetCo conversationalist.
Another person knew that it was for ImprovEverywhere and that threw me off guard. Boo.
This was tons of fun! And very clever.
I feel bad though, since a bunch of people stole some of the leashes at the end of the day.
whenever anyone said that our dog wasn’t real, I simply replied that we didn’t like to speak ill of the dog where she could hear.
we were also legitimately rejected from one restaurant on the grounds that there were no dogs allowed. they didn’t break the charade so neither did we!
so much fun! thanks guys!
My favorite moment today was walking down a rather empty block and several girls came up to me asking if “that” was free and where everyone was getting them. I responded by asking what they meant by “that”… the leash? my dog?…oh they meant the dog…After a few minutes I informed them that i went to a breeder and picked one up and he was quite expensive but worth every penny. The girls looked at each other and stated “oh my god she’s crazy she thinks it’s real. lets just go”
Thanks IE for a fun filled afternoon!
I felt a bit like a celebrity because people were asking me if they could take a picture of me and my dog, Reggie. Other people were (not-so) surreptitiously taking picture with their cell phones. There were a lot of people who pretended not to notice me and my dog, but as soon as they thought I was out of ear-shot, I’d hear them commenting about what they thought was happening.
A young girl asked me where I got my dog. I answered from the pound. Her eyes just got really wide and she walked over to her dad. As I walk away, I hear her say to her father in a loud voice, “EVERYONE is walking their INVISIBLE dogs today.”
A woman asked me if there was a dog show going on. I shook my head and said, “I don’t know. I’m just out walking my dog.”
Another woman told me that she had seen several people walking dogs just like mine. My eyes got really wide and I exclaimed, “Really? Wow! My dog’s a mutt, I didn’t think there were many dogs like mine.”
My longest conversation was with a man who asked what I was doing. I insisted that I was just out walking my dog. He asked if I lived around there. I had already decided that my cover story would be that my boyfriend did in case people tried to trip me up by asking about things in Brooklyn that people who lived there should know. I walked away, but curiosity got better of this guy and he chased after me to question me further.
“I’m just curious, but does your boyfriend have the same qualities as your dog?”
I had a confused look on my face, “What do you mean?”
“Is he as transparent as your dog? He isn’t real.”
I immediately corrected him and said, “My boyfriend is real. My dog is real.” Which is true, my boyfriend is about as real as my invisible dog.
I had a fantastic afternoon walking my dog and interacting with people with other (real) dogs and invisible dogs. I saw that a store really got into it and had a sign out saying that invisible dogs were welcome. I got a huge kick out of seeing people sitting in cafes with their invisible dogs, texting while walking their dogs, sitting on benches with their very obedient invisible dogs, and being pulled along as their invisible dogs chased after birds and squirrels.
Fantastic mission! Can’t wait to do another one.
hope this works:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=2327729&id=728949360
Some cops stopped in front of me and my sister as we were about to cross the street. A crazy lady was complaining to them about all of the dogs. They said they would give us a summons if the invisible dogs got off the leash :D) lol
Lady: Thats not a real dog, thank you very much.
Me: Dont say that about my puppy please, i love him very much.
Lady: Well im gonna bring my cat over here and shes gonna f*ck up your dog, than well see whats real and whats not.
Me: *walks over to police officer* Officer that lady is threatening to harm my dog.
Officer: (to Lady) Maam, please dont harass the dog, the dog is doing nothing to harm you.
Best conversation ever, that was definitely the highlight of my day. Cant wait to participate in another mission.
It was my first mission and I had a great time, I keep hearing a lot of people on their cell phones “Their are invisble dogs everywhere” And people just kept asking whats going on. I remember as we passed by one person he said “Oh my gosh there’s an other one, mashugana!” Towards the end, serveral reasturants had posted signs such as “We are dog friendly” and a few had left out “Invisible dog water” Another when we walked into a reasurtant one person said “No dogs allowed.” Then he said “I have been wanting to say that all day!” It was an amazing time.
Took a picture of a sign outside a dog daycare
http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/3193/0927091608.jpg
o_o I laughed hard.
That is hysterical.
I was the first person to get a dog and one of the last to give theirs back, and my hands are killing me. I don’t think those things are designed for 2-hr continuous use.
I got stopped by two police officers and asked what was going on/what we were doing. I answered that I was walking my dog, and told them that I got James (my dog) at a pet store. They spent a few more minutes trying to get a straight answer out of me before driving off in a huff.
I also got interviewed by a lady who said she was with some Swedish news group. Anyone else?