A dog became the star of Germany's biggest game show last Saturday by balancing a glass of water on her head as she trotted up and down a flight of stairs.

"Sweet Pea", a cross between a border collie and an Australian Alsatian, appeared on Saturday in "Wetten Dass...?" ("You Bet"), a show in which contestants bet on unusual stunts.

She didn't spill a drop, to the astonishment of some 13.5 million television viewers. Sweet Pea's owner Alex Rothacker, a professional dog handler from Illinois in the US, spent five years training her.

"I spent two to three hours a day working with Sweet Pea. We worked with different staircases and in various locations. I also got her to balance other items on her snout -- things that were harder to balance than a glass of water," Rothacker said in an interview published on the game show's Web site.

He has also managed to get her to walk up and down steps on her hind legs.

Mass circulation tabloid Bild ran a story on the "super dog" on Monday under the headline: "Can I teach my Dachshund to do that?" The answer is probably not. Border collies, bred to marshal herds of sheep, are more persistent than other breeds of dog.