A TikTokker named Peli Roja (redhead in Spanish) runs a doggie daycare in the Boston, Massachusetts, area where she cares for an adorable group of four-legged friends. Her super-sweet videos have earned her nearly 350,000 followers, and a recent video is so sweet it’s received over 13 million views.
In the video, the dogs dramatically change their facial expressions after being told they’re a “good boy.” They go from having resting dog faces to appearing to be proud and happy. The video has undoubtedly brought smiles to millions of human faces, and it’s a great reminder to tell your dog they’re a “good boy” or “good girl” whenever you can.
The clip comes with a caption that reads: “Puppies before and after being told that they’re a good boy/girl.”
While some might say that the dog’s response just mirrors the human’s excitement, studies show that dogs understand when we praise them. Scientists in Hungary did MRI scans on dogs and then played their owners praising them or using neutral terms, and the dogs could tell the difference.
The implication is that dogs may be able to understand what we say and not just how we say it.
The study “shows that dogs are capable of identifying strings of phonemes that form meaningful speech commands, rather than solely relying on the command’s intonation,” David Reby, a psychologist at the University of Sussex, told Smithsonian. “It does not, however, mean that dogs are capable of understanding human language.”
