A pet owner has commended her dog for seemingly not wanting to "hurt" her feelings when it comes to his handmade bed.
They may be our fluffy, four-legged companions, better known for games of fetch than serious conversation, but dogs are more perceptive than many give them credit for. That was highlighted in a 2021 study published in the journal Animal Cognition, which highlighted how canines' understanding of human emotions informs their decision-making.
In the study, more than 90 domestic dogs were presented with a social interaction between two unfamiliar people. In each instance, the interactions clearly displayed a positive, negative or neutral emotion to the dogs. In the next step, the dogs were given the opportunity to approach food that was either freely available or required the humans' help to access.
During this part of the test, the humans involved displayed only neutral emotions, leaving the dogs with only the emotions displayed in the previous encounter to base their decision on.
The researchers found that the dogs tended to choose the human who had shown a positive expression in the previous encounter and avoided the ones who were negative.
The findings suggest dogs are capable of acquiring information from emotional expressions and inferring some form of emotional state when making decisions.
It's a theory that's further reinforced in the footage shared to TikTok by Hannah, a dog owner sharing clips of Chihuahua mix to the platform under the handle @h.anner.
In one recent video, Hannah explained how she "crocheted a bed" for her dog but subsequently discovered "it's too small."
However, her dog has been making the best of things, as the video reveals. "She doesn't want to hurt my feelings and still uses it," Hannah said in the clip, which shows her dog happily squeezed into her new handmade bed.
Newsweek reached out to @h.anner for further comment via TikTok.
The video has been watched over 3 million times on TikTok, with viewers full of praise for the pup's considerate actions.
One user labeled the pet pooch a "thankful queen," and another wrote: "We love a considerate queen."
Others had a theory about why she might be fond of the smaller bed. "I think most dogs actually like when it's like this. Similar to babies being swaddled," one user said. Another agreed, commenting: "I swear they love beds that are too small for them."
A third added: "My dog had so many beds and blankets but she still chooses to sleep on a singular dirty sock..."
One animal lover had an innovative idea of what to do next. "Make her a bigger one and flip that one upside down inside the bigger one then she will have a really cozy bed," the commenter suggested.
While Hannah will likely take that into consideration, her dog does seem pretty happy with the current arrangement. Either that or he's a very good liar.
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