Corgis Gone Viral: Meet Dash & Lili, the Internet’s Favorite Dog Duo

00:20

Jordan Tyler

behind the scenes of SUPERZOO: 2025

01:11

Jordan Tyler

live on the floor of SUPERZOO: 2025

01:38

Dr. Stephanie Clark

Welcome to Barking Mad, a podcast by BSM Partners. We're your hosts, Dr. Stephanie Clark—

01:45

Jordan Tyler

—and I'm Jordan Tyler.

01:49

Adriane Wang

My name is Adriane. I am, I guess, the momager of Dash and Lili, the corgis on Instagram. We have created this community and now we're about a million and a half followers around the world, which is incredible to even think about that. So many people love our dogs just as much as we do.

02:09

Mike Wang

Yeah, not necessarily us.

02:10

Adriane Wang

Yeah, not necessarily us. Just our dogs. They don't really care about us, but yeah. So, I am the momager and the content creator and the one behind the camera and doing all the editing.

02:20

Mike Wang

Oh, I'm Mike. I'm basically a prop and the assistant. And…

02:25

Dr. Stephanie Clark

Yeah, at least he knows his role, right?

02:27

Mike Wang

Yeah, it's drilled in—it's drilled into me.

02:30

Adriane Wang

I try to get him to, like, help me film because sometimes I want to be in the videos and I love him so much, but he still—

02:40

Mike Wang

We have that on tape.

02:41

Adriane Wang

Yeah, he still does the camera, like an old man. And he doesn't know how to zoom in or do it. And I was like, oh, no…

02:48

Jordan Tyler

Like, do you have your finger in front of the lens?

02:50

Mike Wang

Basically, yeah, yeah.

02:53

Adriane Wang

So I need to—

02:53

Mike Wang

It's like in selfie view half the time. That's why I take no credit for any of the social media. It's all her again. I'm just along for the ride.

03:03

Jordan Tyler

Well, I will say I've totally become part of your audience. I think that your videos, especially, like, TikTok, is mostly what I watch and I follow you guys, and I think that your content's really clever, but I'd love to, like, kind of go back to the beginning and get, like, how did you, like, start building this community? What was, like, the, like, pivotal kind of moment that got all this started?

03:22

Adriane Wang

Sure. So, let's talk about our firstborn son, Dash. So, throughout our entire relationship, I always said, I want a dog. I want a dog. I grew up with dogs, so I always wanted one. And he just did not want it. He was like, I don't want any more responsibilities. Like, life is good.

03:39

Mike Wang

I may have a commitment problem.

03:41

Adriane Wang

Maybe, maybe. And then we got married, went on our honeymoon, finished our honeymoon, and we landed back in New York. I was still on the plane, and I opened my phone and I get our email from our breeder, who is now our family friend. Hey, you can pick up Dash probably in a bug two weeks or so. So, I started laughing. I'm smiling. I'm so happy. I'm like, oh my—

04:05

Mike Wang

This is the happiest I saw her on our honeymoon.

04:07

Adriane Wang

Oh, no. Probably my entire life.

04:10

Dr. Stephanie Clark

That wrapped in the wedding date, too.

04:13

Mike Wang

Yeah. Wrap it all up.

04:14

Adriane Wang

Yes.

04:14

Mike Wang

Happiest I've seen her ever. Oh. So I look over at her, I'm like, hey, what's going on? I thought she. She got some really good news. I was like, hey, what's going on?

04:22

Adriane Wang

And he had met Dash before, but he didn’t think—

04:24

Mike Wang

I didn't think, like she had always told me. She's like, oh, the waiting list is so long. This is like years away.

04:30

Adriane Wang

Listen, it was long. It took me four years to get Dash.

04:33

Mike Wang

Yeah, she didn't tell me that part.

04:35

Dr. Stephanie Clark

I mean, in fairness, she always said, “I wanted a dog.”

04:38

Mike Wang

That's true.

04:39

Mike Wang

She had laid this four year plan a long time ago.

04:43

Adriane Wang

So then I told him, like, hey, I think we're gonna pick up Dash in two weeks. And he was like, no, we're not. Hit cancel. Hit refund.

04:52

Mike Wang

I thought it was like an Amazon order. Like, I knew nothing about dollars at the time. I was him.

04:57

Adriane Wang

And then I looked him straight in the eye, and I go, what you gonna do, divorce me?

05:03

Mike Wang

And I was like, oh, man. So we're married now.

05:05

Adriane Wang

There it is.

05:06

Mike Wang

Yeah, we're in. We're in for it.

05:07

Adriane Wang

So then we got Dash and it was the best decision ever.

05:12

Mike Wang

We drive there, and I do remember we drive there, and I take a look at him, and I'm just like, oh, yeah. Like, it just. You look into your dog's eyes and everything changes.

05:21

Adriane Wang

etc. And then fast forward to: 2022

06:05

Adriane Wang

e we work. So then one day in: 2022

06:53

Adriane Wang

And then I realized that while were up in the air, nothing that was going on. Dash went viral on TikTok and accumulated, like, couple of millions of views.

07:03

Mike Wang

We had, like, people from middle school reaching out to us.

07:05

Adriane Wang

We started getting text messages from people that we haven't talked to in, like, 20 years. And they're like, is this you? Is this the back of your head? I'm like, I guess it is. So then I realized, oh, people just love seeing my dog throw things at my husband. So let's do it again. Yeah, let's do it again.

07:25

Mike Wang

So then every time I had a video call, she'd be like, hey, can Dash hit you? And I'm just like, I feel like this is a trick question.

07:32

Adriane Wang

But it was kind of natural to us because one we Work from home. So we have to work. And two, Dash likes to play. So he was already doing that every single day. So all I had to do was set up a camera, record, edit the video, put it up. It kind of snowballed into what it is today. When we first went viral, I had maybe 10,000 followers. And then now we have over a million and a half across TikTok and Instagram and YouTube and Facebook, you name it. But, yeah, that's been a journey. And throughout this entire journey, we did get our second dog, Lili, right before I gave birth to our human daughter. And I sometimes just specify if it's a human or a dog when I talk about my kids.

08:18

Mike Wang

People thought were crazy when we got Lili because we had our human daughter coming a few months later.

08:25

Adriane Wang

Oh, but she has been the best, actually.

08:28

Dr. Stephanie Clark

The human or the dog? No, I'm just kidding.

08:31

Adriane Wang

The dog. Lili is so different than Dash. So, so different. And I think, like, he actually brought this whole different side of him because before, he used to never play with any dogs. Like, you take him to the dog park, he just, like, sits there. Now when we go to the park with Lili and Lili finds a new friend, Dash is like, oh, I want in too. Like, I want to play too. So it has been all really great.

08:59

Mike Wang

Like, we've seen Dash's personality really evolve with Lili, and I think that's just like anything when you have a sibling.

09:04

Dr. Stephanie Clark

He just needed an emotional support dog, right?

09:06

Mike Wang

Yeah, he needed an emotional support dog. Yes.

09:09

Jordan Tyler

So what was the decision like, to get Lili? Was it to have a companion for Dash?

09:14

Mike Wang

Yeah, I think it was. So we approached it saying, this is Dash's decision. It's not ours. We always wanted just a big family that includes dogs, includes humans. I don't know. Includes everyone. But I remember when we pulled up to the farm to see Lili, weren't sure because we knew we had the human baby coming. And Dash is usually very standoffish with other dogs. He takes a while to, like, warm up to them. Lili was the first dog I saw that he instantly ran up to her. They started playing. They started chasing each other around, and I was like, oh, wow. Like, I don't know how much of a clearer sign you. You need. Literally, from the first day, they. They got along, my brother and sister. And the funny thing is, Lili is younger and smaller, but she's the one that bullies Dash.

10:01

Adriane Wang

Yeah, that's how it goes.

10:02

Mike Wang

Yeah.

10:03

Adriane Wang

member it was Thanksgiving of: 2023

10:44

Mike Wang

Involved, see what happens.

10:45

Adriane Wang

And see what happens. Right? But we didn't want to tell people yet just because if it didn't work out, it. It would be heartbreaking. But again, the moment that, number one, we first saw pictures of Lili that our friend sent over. And I love this lady, but she. She has a potato for a phone. And all the pictures of Lili look like she was like a raccoon that was melting.

11:10

Mike Wang

So we looked at each other and were like, is this a dog or is this like a raccoon, a wallaby? Like, what is this?

11:17

Adriane Wang

It was like.

11:19

Mike Wang

And then our friend kept saying, no, she's super cute. And I was like, not from what I'm seeing.

11:22

Adriane Wang

We pull up to her house and obviously before we get out of the car, we see through the window, I see Lili. And I looked at Mike, and Mike has this look on his face like, it's game over. She's cute. He's super cute. And again, were like, okay, let's not get our hopes out. This is Dasha's decision. If he doesn't play with Lili, we're not doing this. And we get there and immediately, boom, like, start playing. And it was non stop since. And now they wrestle every day. They run around the park every day. And. And here we are with two dogs and a. And a baby.

11:55

Mike Wang

Yeah, we. Whenever we're traveling, we always say it's. It looks like a circus. You got giant stroller, you got two dogs, you got two humans just kind of hanging on.

12:17

Jordan Tyler

So I know a lot of influencers like will endorse like, certain brands. And if we don't. If you guys don't want to go into this today, we totally don't have to. But I think that the, like, kind of philosophy that you have around, you know, endorsing brands like publicly through your page and to your audience is really interesting, especially when it comes to, like, nutritional products. So would you kind of like, take us through that.

12:37

Adriane Wang

Yeah, I mean, for brand partnerships, first of all, our core value is if we don't use it and we don't love it, we're not doing it.

12:47

Jordan Tyler

Yeah.

12:47

Adriane Wang

It doesn't matter how much money it is nationally, must love the product, otherwise we just won't do it. So when it comes to pet food or vitamins and supplements, I actually just don't do it. Mainly because I think a lot of the times the supplements and the vitamins, especially the vitamins and supplements space, they can put things on the bottles to say, help, support. But what does that actually mean? Is there clinical studies behind it? Is actually proven that it will help, or am I just feeding our dogs placebo? Like, what is actually in this? Like, does this actually help? So I don't love that. Whenever I buy a product, I need to see, like clinically proven or, you know, actually have some data and science and research behind it.

13:43

Adriane Wang

And the other thing that I learned about the pet food industry that I thought was really interesting is a lot of the humanization behind it. I think that us as pet parents, we want the best for our dogs. So when we're walking down the aisle and you see human grade, organic, grain free, our dogs don't know that, but for us, we're like, oh, this sounds amazing, but what does that actually mean?

14:07

Mike Wang

And is it actually good for them?

14:09

Adriane Wang

And it's actually good. Don't believe everything that you hear. And a lot of times like, there's also kibble versus air, dry, fresh, raw, like all of this stuff. It sounds great.

14:21

Mike Wang

But what's the truth behind it?

14:23

Adriane Wang

What is the truth behind it?

14:25

Mike Wang

What's marketing and what's true?

14:26

Adriane Wang

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So now I'm not going to say that we're experts, but whenever I look at a product, I look at their labels and I ask your team, is this a complete balanced diet? Is this actually really good for my dog or not? I just feel like in the pet food industry or pet supplements and everything, they tend to use a lot of humanization and to make you as a pet parent feel like you're doing something great for your pet. But is it actually good for your pet or not?

14:55

Mike Wang

Yeah, because one thing we ask ourselves a lot is we've been blessed with a following that people find us entertaining for whatever reason. But what can we really do with it other than be entertaining? So part of it is like, oh, we really want to take care and have our pets live happier, healthier lives. And we've been blessed to be able to Talk to people like you and other experts, like, how can we have that knowledge and, you know, educate our followers? And then the second thing is, can we team up with other causes and rescues and, you know, organizations that we really believe in?

15:34

Adriane Wang

Yeah. So we have done. We're trying right now. I'm not sure if you guys know about the shelter situation across the nation in New York is pretty bad, but a lot of the shelters are basically full capacity. The one that we have recently been trying to spotlight is the ACC in New York and they're municipal shelter, so they can't really turn away. If a police finds a stray. They need to take it in, you know, like they just can't take. Turn it away. And it's heartbreaking. So we've been trying to spotlight a lot of the shelter dogs that need.

16:11

Mike Wang

Homes, home or just families to love.

16:15

Dr. Stephanie Clark

Yeah. And matching them appropriately.

16:17

Mike Wang

Right.

16:18

Dr. Stephanie Clark

Like, unfortunately, like, it's really hard to do that in a shelter. Right. You just want to get them out into loving homes. But sometimes those loving homes don't fit their personality.

16:28

Mike Wang

That's what we realized when we visited acc, because you see these dogs and they're in a chaotic, crazy situation and they, some of them give off great impressions, but some of them just, it's just not the right environment. And then we took some of those dogs that might have seemed shy, might have seemed scared. You take them on like a five minute walk and like their personalities completely change. Just like, there's so many great dogs out there.

16:51

Adriane Wang

Yeah.

16:52

Dr. Stephanie Clark

I mean, Annie, my little meatloaf, she had a really bad past and I adopted her when I was teaching at a school. And they were like, well, we're just gonna use Denizer because no one wants a dog that just hides in the corner. And I'm like, well, I mean, I don't have to have this like super overly happy dog to still love her and give her a good home. Does she still hide behind the toilet occasionally?

17:13

Adriane Wang

Yes.

17:13

Dr. Stephanie Clark

Does she hate everyone? Yeah, I know, exactly. Does she hate everyone equally?

17:18

Adriane Wang

Yes.

17:19

Dr. Stephanie Clark

But, you know, she's 15 years old now. We've given her a whole life.

17:24

Adriane Wang

Right.

17:25

Dr. Stephanie Clark

So anyway, I could go on about Annie.

17:29

Jordan Tyler

We love Annie. She does love to interrupt our recording sessions, but we love her for it.

17:34

Dr. Stephanie Clark

She wants to be on.

17:35

Adriane Wang

She does.

17:36

Jordan Tyler

She wants to be her next week's guest.

17:38

Adriane Wang

Yeah.

17:39

Jordan Tyler

Let Annie speak.

17:42

Dr. Stephanie Clark

She's old and wise, scrappy.

17:45

Jordan Tyler

Well, I appreciate you guys sharing a little bit about kind of your philosophy around who you support, brands you support and causes you support. I think that Everything that you're doing, especially for shelters, is super needed right now.

17:58

Mike Wang

Yeah, I think having pets really transformed our life. Again, this is coming from a guy that didn't want a dog for years. And it just reminds me that like, yes, so many families and people and humans could. I would love for them to experience this.

18:28

Jordan Tyler

So if you had a message, I'm sure you know, you will give a message to your audience. Absolutely. From this show. But after being at SUPERZOO for a day, I know you guys have been to Global Pet Expo as well, so a couple trade shows under your belt. What would you like to tell other pet parents about, like the industry now that you have kind of like that behind the scenes perspective?

18:49

Adriane Wang

That's a good question.

18:50

Mike Wang

I mean, the way I think about it is it's similar to when we are at the grocery store. You go from just reading the commercials, you see or maybe like the headlines on the front of the box that actually going through all of the ingredients and trying to really understand what we are putting in our own bodies or maybe our daughter's bodies and taking that same approach for now, Dash and Lili, which is, you know, like before we didn't really think too much about what were feeding them or how much were feeding them. And then it turns out, oh like obesity is the number one risk factor for dogs. So like, let's be a little bit more on top of how many treats and what we're giving them and also what's inside of like, what's the actual ingredients and what actually matters.

19:34

Adriane Wang

Yeah, I shall say look beyond the first couple of lines on the bag. And actually the other thing that I want our followers to really understand is like, there are so many new pet food brands now and one of the key marketing ideas that they have is try to demonize or make it another type of food look bad. For example, I'm going to talk about fresh fruit versus kibble, right? So many people are like, oh, you gotta feed your dog fresh fruit because that's so much better for them, or raw, because that's what they eat in a while. And kibble is so bad for them because it's dried and it's processed and it loses all the vitamins.

20:15

Adriane Wang

But the more you do the research, you actually learn that kibble is one of the best things that you can feed your dog, not only because it's a completely balanced diet, but like they get all the proper nutrition that they actually need. For example, like I was actually very against chicken meal and Beef meal. Right. The meal just sounds bad. Right? And why does it sound bad? Because the pet food industry went fresh and raw for, like, you don't want to feel that. That's like bones and fragments and fillers. Fillers and things like. That's all the bad stuff. Actually, you do some digging. There is actually two kinds of meals out there. There's your high quality meal and your low quality meal.

20:59

Adriane Wang

Yeah, the low quality meal is not what you actually want, but the high quality meal is actually really great for your dog because it contains your high levels of glucosamine that actually is really great for your dog's joint and muscles. So you start learning as to, like, why certain ingredients are actually good for you that you originally thought were bad. And now I'm like, okay, well, as long as it's like, that's a high quality, like, meal, like, I'm okay with that. Like, our. Our food at home right now that we feed our dogs has meal in it. And I know for a fact that, like, they actually source, like, high quality stuff. So don't believe everything that you see from a marketing standpoint. Do additional digging into it. Talk to your vet, talk to nutritionist, because really those are your experts in the field.

21:47

Adriane Wang

We rely a lot on this.

21:50

Mike Wang

Experts, Experts. People doing research.

21:53

Adriane Wang

Yeah, a lot of the research. Whenever we're trying to decide something to feed Dutch, we try to look for research based and data based.

22:03

Mike Wang

Or is this like, what do the people smarter than us do?

22:06

Adriane Wang

Yeah, exactly.

22:07

Jordan Tyler

There's a lot of fear, Mark fear mongering in the marketing these days. You know, big kibble killed my dog and all of that. It's just a lot of. It's just marketing. And there is still a ton of research that we need to do on some of these more emerging formats to really be able to say, okay, this is maybe better than this in X, Y, Z ways, but nutrition is complicated. It's way more complicated than this is better than this because to this one factor. Right, right. So much more complicated than that.

22:37

Adriane Wang

So, yeah, I mean, we asked our vets and a couple of people, like, is it better if I feed my dog this fresh food or this raw?

22:46

Mike Wang

He goes, it's more expensive poop.

22:48

Adriane Wang

And I'm like, okay, I do not want to pay for more expensive poop. There.

22:53

Jordan Tyler

Excellent.

22:54

Adriane Wang

How about that?

22:54

Dr. Stephanie Clark

I'm gonna use that.

22:56

Mike Wang

The other thing we do is wheel is grade. This might be tmi. Wheel is grade. Dashing Lili's poop. When we try something new.

23:03

Adriane Wang

Love it.

23:03

Mike Wang

And then we'll Be like, oh, that was an A.

23:05

Dr. Stephanie Clark

Everything is poop, so you're not grossing me out.

23:07

Mike Wang

Sometimes we'd be like, oh, that was a C. I don't know about this one.

23:10

Adriane Wang

A little bit on the soft.

23:11

Mike Wang

Cause they'll eat everything, right? So, like, the actual, you know, truth is it's in the poop.

23:17

Jordan Tyler

So you do plus minus, too. That's like, you guys got, like, a.

23:20

Adriane Wang

Really good plus.

23:22

Mike Wang

We're Asian tiger parents. You know, like, we're aiming for the A.

23:27

Adriane Wang

The other day, it was so funny because Sash had a really great poop. So it's like, oh, that's a eight plus poop. And then Lili has softer poop because she was still recovering. He's like, Lili, you need to do some work on this. This is a B minus.

23:41

Mike Wang

Lili, get some practice in.

23:43

Jordan Tyler

I'm not mad. I'm just disappointed.

23:45

Adriane Wang

Exactly. Now for your. Your human daughter. Yeah, our human daughter. I grade hers. She does not care what grade she gets. She. She's like, this is what you're getting. This is my room. Yeah. Aware. But, like, being a pet parent actually really helped us prepare for the human aspect of it because, like, it's funny because we take our daughter to the pediatrician, and he actually compared human penetrations to vets. This is veterinary medicine.

24:15

Mike Wang

Oh, yeah. Because they can't tell you what's wrong.

24:18

Adriane Wang

Yeah.

24:18

Mike Wang

Yeah. It's a little bit of a guessing game. And I guess grading poops.

24:25

Jordan Tyler

me with us at studio SUPERZOO: 2025

25:19

Jordan Tyler

We've shared their socials in the show notes for today's episode, but Mike and Adriane weren't the only ones who stopped by our soundproof booth at the SUPERZOO show floor. If you missed our previous episodes from inside the booth, we've linked them in the show notes for today. So tune in if you want to hear from passionate entrepreneurs, disruptive innovators, retailers and other pet professionals shaping the future of pet care.

25:44

Dr. Stephanie Clark

Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Barking Mad. If you want to learn more about BSM Partners, please visit us at www.bsmpartners.net. Don't forget to subscribe on your favorite leading podcast platform or share it with a friend to stay current on the latest pet industry trends and conversations.

26:06

Jordan Tyler

We'd also like to thank our dedicated team, Ada-Miette Thomas, Neeley Boden, Kait Wright, Cady Wolf, and Dr. Katy Miller. A special shout out to Lee Ann Hagerty and Michael Johnson in support of this episode, and to David Perez for our original music in the intro and outro. See you next time!

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