Area Dog Boy's Death Raises Awareness of the Dangers of Stage Hypnosis.....

Cankerton, OH - The tragic life of Andy Andrews, known by many around Cankerton as Andy the Dog Boy, came to an end this week, inspiring local activists and helping to raise awareness of the potential dangers of inappropriate stage hypnosis.

A toddler, shown here still believing that he is a successful businessman after a botched stage hypnotism performance and just prior to buying 500 shares of GameStop and...a Bitcoin?

"Andy was a curious boy and always the first person to volunteer for just about anything," Andy's younger sister and caretaker Mildred Andrews explained. "When he went up on stage that day, we just thought it was harmless fun. We didn't know it could stick....nobody warned us."

That day in the Summer of 1955, at the Cankerton Pawpaw Festival, 10-year-old Andrews and his family attended the performance of travelling stage hypnotist Lance the Outrageous. After volunteering to participate in the show, Andy was hypnotized into believing that he was a dog. In a write up for the Cankerton Abattoir, the now shuttered local newspaper, Andy was described as being easily put into a state of deep sleep and as having begun barking immediately after Lance the Outrageous clapped his hands three times.

"There was my big brother Andy barking and carrying on like a dog and we all had a good laugh," Mildred Andrews remembered as she cradled the fire hydrant shaped urn containing Andy's ashes. "But we figured something wasn't right when he wouldn't stop sniffing Mayor Bronson's crotch after that charlatan clapped his hands three more times. He just kept clapping and Andy kept sniffing. I still hear it some nights while I'm trying to fall asleep. Clap clap clap. Sniff sniff sniff."

Lance the Outrageous wasn't a fraud. He was a fully certified stage hypnotist that had delighted crowds all over western east Ohio for years. But, as the family of Andy Andrews came to learn, he was not trained in pediatric stage hypnotism. In 1955, no state or federal law made a distinction between adult and pediatric subjects, a one-size-fits-all approach decried by the American Academy of Pediatrics' Section on Carnival and State Fair Medicine. 

"Children are not merely small adults," Mort Fishman, pediatrician and Chief of Pediatric Hypnotism at The Cleveland Clinic, explained. "The brain of a child is different than the brain of an adult. It's more adaptable but also more malleable and more sensitive. We have developed pediatric protocols that help prevent sticking. That's what we call it...what happened to that dog boy. His mind got stuck in the dog state. I came up with that, by the way. Sticking. It's pretty good, right?"

According to Fishman, sticking is surprisingly common, occurring during 1 out of every 40 to 50 stage hypnotism routines involving a child, and it is always permanent. "There are no documented recoveries from sticking. There are no successful therapies. No reverse hypnosis. That's why we focus on prevention by educating families about the risks and offering pediatric focused training for performers."

As the weeks passed, Andy's family sought treatment from psychiatrists, neurologists, and other stage hypnotists but nothing worked. Andy continued to believe that he was dog well into the fall and wasn't allowed to attend school after biting a classmate and urinating on a flag post. Refusing to institutionalize him, Andy's parents accepted that their boy was likely gone forever and began to adapt to their new life. 

Andy would never leave his childhood home again, spending most of his days watching cars and people pass by and occasionally chasing squirrels or harassing the neighbor's cat. After his parents passed away, his sister took over as his caretaker and legal guardian. Last week, Andy escaped the yard one final time and was hit by a passing bus, dying while doing what he loved most.

Andy may be gone, but his death has inspired local activists like Camelton Evans to try to prevent any more children from being harmed by improper stage hypnotism. "Whether it's believing that they are a dog, a duck, or tiger. Or that the room is really cold. Or that they don't have any clothes on. Whatever the false belief may be, I'm not going to rest until no child becomes stuck believing it. Not one."