A video is viral on social media with the false claim that it shows a man who underwent plastic surgery to become a dog. Some posts identify the man in the video as Toco, a Japanese man, and claim that he purchased a hyper-realistic dog costume to fulfil his lifelong dream of living as an animal.
BOOM found that the video is AI-generated and has no connection to Toco. We found multiple visual inconsistencies in the clip, while AI detection tools IsFake.ai and TruthScan flagged it as manipulated.
The clip revives the story of Toco, whose decision to live as a dog in a custom-made suit drew international coverage in 2022. While Toco is a real person who continues to document his life as an animal online, the viral video does not show him.
The Claim
One set of posts described the video as showing a man who had transformed himself into a dog through plastic surgery because of his obsession with dogs. Others claimed that Japanese man Toco had spent around 2 million yen on a hyper-realistic Rough Collie costume to fulfil his lifelong dream of living as an animal, and had become a real-life human dog.
Click here and here to see archive of the posts.
BOOM also received the video on its WhatsApp tipline number (7700906588) with a request for verification.
What We Found: The Video Is AI-Generated
1. Visual inconsistencies in the video: A close examination of the clip showed the ear of the man-like dog disappearing in a later frame, while a distorted, unidentified hand-like object moves unusually. Such inconsistencies can indicate that a video has been AI-generated.
2. AI detection tools flag manipulation: Taking a cue from the visual inconsistencies, BOOM ran the video through multiple AI video detection tools, including IsFake.ai and TruthScan. Both flagged the video as AI-manipulated.
3. Toco is real, but not in the viral video: A keyword search led BOOM to a 2022 report by The Mirror, which said Toco bought a £12,480 human-sized Collie costume to fulfil his lifelong dream of becoming a dog. He documents his activities on a verified X account and on his YouTube channel, "I want to be an animal", and said in an April 2026 post that four years had passed since he ordered the suit.
Zeppet, the company that made the costume, shared glimpses of it in a 2022 post on its verified X account.