A video of a dog and her owner sharing a bonding moment on a couch has gone viral on TikTok.
The clip, which had over 163,000 views as of Friday morning, was posted by @nala_thebelgian, the TikTok account of Nala the Belgian Malinois, a type of Belgian shepherd dog, on Thursday.
A message overlaid on the clip read: “When you’re at work and you open your home camera to see this.” The footage shows a man on a sofa, laying on his back, with his arms and legs extended. He is then seen petting a dog that was laying next to him in a similar belly-up position.
A caption shared with the post read: “Cuddles without mommy.”
The moment captured in the latest viral clip is not surprising since our canine friends share a strong bond with their owners.
A May 2013 study in the peer-reviewed journal PLOS One said: “This unique relationship between adult dogs and their human owners bears a remarkable resemblance to an infant attachment bond: dogs are dependent on human care and their behavior seems specifically geared to engage their owners’ care-giving system.”
Meanwhile, a January 2015 study in the peer-reviewed journal Behavioural Processes, in which dogs were presented with scents (that of a familiar human, strange human, familiar dog, strange dog and the self), provided “important clues about the importance of humans in dogs’ lives.”
The study found that only the “familiar human” scent activated the caudate nucleus, which is the “reward center” of dogs’ brains.
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The study said that while the olfactory bulb, which is the part of dogs’ brains that processes smells, was “activated to a similar degree by all the scents, the caudate was activated maximally to the familiar human…”
According to the study, “the caudate activation suggested that not only did the dogs discriminate that scent from the others, they had a positive association with it.”
TikTok Users React
The latest video has melted the hearts of users on TikTok.
User tina.waldron1 simply wrote, “Awwww,” while user ipembleton wrote, “So cute they sleep alike.”
MCelotta wrote, “Best view ever,” while Ruddy Nunez commented, “Just a baby and dad.”
SirWortWort wrote, “Man with his best friend,” while SF685 wrote, “Daddy’s girl!”
Newsweek has contacted the original poster for comment via TikTok. This video has not been independently verified.
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