A video of a dog eagerly waiting for his owner to say something food-related has left the internet in hysterics.
The TikTok video, shared yesterday by @mng0419, shows a man looking at his phone while pretending to order takeout. However, instead of food, he orders everything but edible items.
Throughout the clip, which has racked up over 889,000 views, the man can be heard saying things like, ‘I ordered some paper towels,’ followed by half-sentences such as ‘then I went for …’ and ‘do you want …’—both deliberately stopping short of mentioning food.
After each sentence, the dog tilts its head in confusion. The text layered over the clip explains, ‘When you have a black labrador that is obsessed with food, everything you say could mean dinner is coming.'”
So far, the popular video has received 130,000 likes and almost 600 comments.
“Bro is like please say a word I know,” said one user and another agreed, “He’s just waiting for you to say the right thing.”
A third commenter wrote: “Two phrases that cause chaos in my house. “do you wanna go” and “pup cup.”
A black labrador licks its lips. A similar dog in a viral video hangs on his master’s every word, waiting for him to mention food.
Nicolas Jooris-Ancion/iStock/Getty Images Plus
There’s no denying that dogs can learn words but do they really understand?
Studies have shown that dogs rely on more than just vocabulary to understand what their owners are saying—they also pay attention to tone of voice and body language. For example, research from the journal Science found that dogs process both vocabulary and intonation, interpreting them together to understand commands.
Positive phrases delivered in a positive tone activated the reward centers in dogs’ brains more than neutral or mismatched tones and words. This suggests that dogs respond to both what is said and how it is said.
However, recent research published in PLOS One by researchers from the University of California, San Diego, found that pet dogs can learn to associate soundboard-recorded words with real-world outcomes and respond to them without relying on additional cues, such as body language.
This study investigated whether pet dogs can use Augmentative Interspecies Communication (AIC) devices, like soundboards, to recognize and respond appropriately to specific words related to food, play, and going outside.
The research involved two studies: one conducted by researchers and the other by citizen scientists following the same procedure. The study also examined if the dogs’ behavior depended on who presented the word (their owner or an unfamiliar person) and how the word was communicated (spoken or via a soundboard button).
The experiments found that dogs trained to use soundboards responded correctly to words like play and outside, regardless of whether the words were spoken by their owners, triggered by their owners pressing a button or triggered by an unrelated person pressing them.
This indicates that dogs are processing the meaning of the words themselves rather than relying solely on their owners’ body language or physical presence.
Newsweek reached out to @mng0419 for comment via TikTok. We could not verify the details of the case.
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