Peanut Butter, a Shiba Inu, plays video games for charity

The crowd gathered in a Minneapolis event hall in early July had spent the day watching players tackle video game challenges. But they cheered the loudest when a gamer called Peanut Butter took the stage to play the Nintendo sports game “Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball.”

Peanut Butter’s objective was to win a single baseball game. He sped through the game calmly, occasionally wagging his ears. As he neared victory, the crowd roared its support in a synchronized chant: “Who’s – a – good – boy?”

Then, when Peanut Butter pressed his paw down on a custom controller at just the right moment and hit a virtual home run for the walk-off win, the spectators erupted in glee. Peanut Butter, a 4-year-old Shiba Inu, had cemented himself in gaming lore by completing the challenge in front of hundreds of fans. He celebrated by leaping forward and trying to lick a spoon of peanut butter.

“It was the greatest moment of my life,” James Stephens, Peanut Butter’s owner, told The Washington Post.

Stephens, a Las Vegas-based electrician who goes by the name JSR online, hosts live streams where he plays video games and takes on the specialized challenge of speed-running – completing games or specific objectives within a game as quickly as possible.

He didn’t think he’d share his hobby with a four-legged companion. But when Stephens bought Peanut Butter during the coronavirus pandemic, he realized the 4-month-old pup was remarkably calm and obedient. A month after Stephens began training him, Peanut Butter could wander without a leash, sit and respond to other basic commands.

“I kind of thought, ‘ OK, this dog is special,’ ” Stephens, 39, said. “But, you know, even at that point, nothing really crossed my mind about him playing a video game.”

Stephens was preparing to speed-run another game years later when the audacious idea crossed his mind. Certain sections of “Gyromite,” a 1985 game for the Nintendo Entertainment System, only require the player to alternate between pressing two buttons to lead a character through a maze of pillars. A child could play it. Could Peanut Butter?

Stephens cobbled together a custom, oversized controller using balsa wood and buttons from an arcade machine, large enough that Peanut Butter could easily press them with his paws. The pair practiced playing “Gyromite” for several months, with Stephens coaxing the studious Peanut Butter to press down on a button – “button! stay!” – and release it – “sit!” – at the right time. Peanut Butter enjoyed it and began to perk up excitedly when he heard the game’s music, Stephens said.

“I didn’t know what to expect, and he just nailed it,” Stephens said.

Peanut Butter isn’t the first pooch to take up gaming. Universities and start-ups have explored teaching dogs to play video games to train or rehabilitate them. But Stephens’ background in speed-running gave Peanut Butter a unique challenge – and an audience.

In January, Stephens and Peanut Butter signed up to participate remotely in Awesome Games Done Quick, a gaming event where players attempted speed-runs on a live stream to raise money for the Prevent Cancer Foundation. With the cameras rolling in their Las Vegas home, Stephens guided Peanut Butter through a roughly 20-minute run of “Gyromite.” Astounded viewers flocked to the live stream, and viral attention followed.

“You’re seeing somebody who, he licks his own butt,” Stephens said with a laugh. “He shouldn’t be playing video games. And yet, he can do it, and he’s really good at it.”

As Stephens grappled with Peanut Butter’s newfound fame, he figured his best friend was capable of more. Stephens spent two months and over $1,000 building a new wooden controller for Peanut Butter that could be configured to handle over 20 different inputs.

He settled on an ambitious target for Peanut Butter’s sophomore effort: “Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball,” a 1994 game for Super Nintendo, which uses five buttons and would require more precise timing when Peanut Butter commanded batters to swing at pitches and run the bases.

Stephens also decided he and Peanut Butter would speed-run that game live in Minneapolis in July at Summer Games Done Quick, another charity gaming event hosted by the organizers of the January event. That meant that Peanut Butter would have to keep his focus and composure in front of a crowd of several hundred.

Fans clad in baseball jerseys, many of whom already knew Peanut Butter from his January speed-run, watched the pixelated game with the fervor of a die-hard sports crowd. They clapped, cheered and sang “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” Peanut Butter wasn’t fazed.

“PB was the most locked in I’ve ever seen,” Stephens said.

Stephens, who sat in front of Peanut Butter on the stage to give him directions, delivered steady encouragement via back rubs and string-cheese treats as Peanut Butter’s game labored into extra innings. In the bottom of the 12th inning, Peanut Butter found his timing at the perfect moment. After the walk-off home run, the crowd leaped to its feet in celebration.

Stephens said Peanut Butter enjoyed it, too.

“He loves that attention,” Stephens said. “He’s a total diva.”

The duo raised over $23,000 for Doctors Without Borders from donations made during Peanut Butter’s run, according to Games Done Quick, which organized both charity events. Donation funds were also raised from sales of merchandise, including shirts with the dog’s face, Stephens said.

He added that Peanut Butter’s gaming career isn’t over. Stephens is training the Shiba Inu to do more complex inputs on his controller, like pressing multiple buttons at once, which could allow him to play even more complicated games.

Stephens said he’s still a little taken aback by the attention Peanut Butter has garnered in gaming circles, though he’s glad that the spectacle has allowed him to bond with his pet and raise money for good causes.

“Everybody I’ve met just thinks he’s the coolest dog,” Stephens said. “And I tend to agree.”