upworthy

trust

Canva

A black dog lies on the floor.

Grab your tissues, if there are any even left after the world sees this video.

With Christina Perri's "A Thousand Years" underscoring, we see a young man in pajamas sitting on a bed wearing noise-cancelling headphones. A tail-wagging black dog approaches as the TikTok chyron shares: "POV: Your autistic son was always afraid of dogs until..."

@lifeotspectrum

They were looking for each other ❤️ 🎥: @thecheyenneagains (TT) #autism #therapydog

We see him doing, perhaps, some self-soothing stimming, as he timidly reaches out to pet the dog, but his trepidation pulls him back. It then reads, "A stray dog randomly shows up at your house and changed everything."

As he continues to show interest, but is held back by fear, the dog sits…and waits, "allowing him the patience and time needed to work through his fears." He crosses his arms and the dog…just…keeps…waiting, while carefully sitting close enough to convey that he's safe.

We see a smile from the young man. "Gunner created a safe space and allowed my son to trust," the chyron continues. And then—his smile got even warmer as he bravely reaches out his hand and gently strokes the dog on his head.

 man, dog, petting, love, animals A man and a dog stand near a dock.  Photo by Joseph Pearson on Unsplash  

The music ceases and he now feels more comfortable petting sweet Gunner. The final chyron reads, "Gunner is the best." And if that wasn't heartwarming enough, Gunner the dog turns around, faces the camera and appears to smile.

Originally posted on the @thecheyenneagains TikTok page and then reposted by Life on the Spectrum (@Lifeotspectrum), this video has half a million likes and thousands of comments. It clearly resonates with people in the spectrum community, dog-lovers, and just plain humans with hearts.

One top commenter writes, "Dog understands autism better than 95 percent of people." Another shares how lovely it is to see Gunner show so much patience and understanding. "Gunner read his body language and energy perfectly and said 'it’s ok dude, I can wait take your time it will be worth it.'" Another shares a similar sentiment, "Gunner just knew. What a brilliant dog and probably life-changing for this young man too."

As a follow-up, the OP shares another video of Gunner soothing her son after what she describes was a "tough day." In this clip, she shares that her son's name is Brodey and we see him again gently petting Gunner as the two look at one another.

@thecheyenneagains

Replying to @LuciaR they are so sweet together and Gunner just knows what to do ❤️ #creatorsearchinsights #fyp #fypシ #fypシ゚viral #fyppppppppppppppppppppppp #viral #viralvideo #viraltiktok #autism #autismawareness #dog #dogsoftiktok #dogs #doglover

A commenter here writes, "Some dogs show up specifically to heal a part of your soul," to which the adoring mother writes, "He just loves Brodey."

Another shares the belief that the two are soul-healing: "I love dogs so much. This is amazing. Not even trained service dog, yet knows exactly what your precious boy needs. I think you found his soul dog."

And don't think Gunner isn't getting some great TikTok attention. After what appears to be a run-in with some skunks, he gets a bath and a talking to.

@thecheyenneagains

Gunner thought it would be a great idea to try and mess with a 🦨!!! 😮‍💨😮‍💨😮‍💨😮‍💨😮‍💨 please pray for me #fyp #fypシ #fypシ゚viral #fypage #trending #dog #dogs #dogsoftiktok #doglover #gross #nose #bath #bathtime #clean #baddog

 

Mom asks him, "Are you gonna mess with the skunks again? Was it worth it? No more skunks. Good grief!" A commenter playfully replies, "He absolutely said yes to both questions."

Can a dog really trust you?

Dogs can smell fear, but can they sniff out the truth? Your dog might actually be smarter than you're giving it credit for. It turns out, dogs are pretty good at picking up on human behavior. Science says so. A team led by Akiko Takaoka of Kyoto University in Japan conducted a study which found out that dogs actually know if you're to be believed or not.

The study involved tricking dogs in the name of science. Humans have known for a long time that if you point at an object, a dog will run to it. Researchers utilized this information in their study. During the experiment, they pointed at a container that was filled with hidden food. Sure enough, the dog ran towards the container. Then, they pointed at a container that was empty. The dogs ran towards it, but found that it had no food.


The third time the researchers pointed at a container with food, the dogs refused to go to the container. They knew the person pointing wasn't reliable based off their previous experience. 34 dogs were used in the experiment, and every single dog wouldn't go towards the container the third time. This experiment either proves that dogs can spot a liar or that dogs have major trust issues.

animals, trust, science

Puppy in a bowl.

assets.rebelmouse.io

In other words, if you lie to your dog, your dog forms the opinion that your word isn't good and will behave accordingly. "Dogs have more sophisticated social intelligence than we thought. This social intelligence evolved selectively in their long life history with humans," said Takaoka, who was also surprised that dogs were quick when they "devalued the reliability of a human.”

John Bradshaw of the University of Bristol in the UK, who wasn't involved in this study, says that the results indicate that dogs prefer predictability. When gestures are inconsistent, dogs tend to become nervous and stressed.

The researchers have plans to repeat the experiment swapping out the dogs with wolves because wolves are closely related to dogs. The point of this isn't to get bitten by wolves, but rather, to see the "profound effects of domestication" on dogs.

This article originally appeared on 06.06.19.

Remember back in 2008 when Obama said he disagreed with John McCain, but would always honor his military service?

Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images.


That feeling of niceness was great ... but it seems to be short-lived in political campaigns. The closer it gets to Election Day, the meaner the candidates seem to get, especially when it comes to each other.

We know that mean language weakens people's faith in the system, which isn't great.

Previous studies have shown that going negative can also be dangerous for the candidates themselves. When you start slinging mud at your opponents, you might get splashed yourself.

But what would happen if, instead of criticizing your opponent, you complimented them?

Professor Nicoletta Cavazza at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia in Italy wanted to find out. To do this, the researchers asked 90 students to sit down and read fake political speeches. Some of the speeches had the typical mostly-negative political cadence you'd expect.

But half were tweaked to include a compliment toward the opposition. For example: "I believe that my competitor, who is an upright and smart person, will agree with me about the need to change this situation."

What did Cavazza find? In the end, the students rated the complimentary politician as being more trustworthy overall.

Unfortunately, we're not likely to see Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump getting all buddy-buddy.

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.

But this research does show us something interesting about our brains.

Cavazza cautioned that the study did have limitations, such as the fact that the politicians were made up, which might limit how much we can apply this to real politics just yet. More research will need to be done to tease out more nuance in their findings as well.

But the study does teach us that we tend to trust people more if it looks like they're going against their own best interests and acting in someone else's best interest instead.

In the case of politics, this can look like being nice to your competition.

But in real life, it can also look like helping someone out randomly. Imagine going to a car mechanic for repair. Maybe there's been a weird thump when it turns on or a little jingle-jangle noise when you go over 40 miles an hour. You leave the car with them for a few hours and when you get back, they've not only fixed the problem but also changed your oil for free!

What a standup bloke. You'd trust him with your car next time, right?

One of the most interesting things about politics is how it lets us see human nature played out on a national stage.

Next time I watch politics, I'll keep an eye out for any flattery because it could be the trick to winning ... although this year, I may have to wait until after Nov. 8 for that.