Dogs may not be able to speak the same language as us, but they definitely know how to communicate with the humans they love.
A golden retriever called Elton has melted hearts on social media after he was caught on camera asking his owner to fix a favorite toy that he had just torn to pieces.
The heartwarming clip, shared on TikTok earlier in May under the username eltonthegoldenretriever, shows the big golden pup standing at his owners’ door with a piece of his favorite stuffed monkey in his mouth, asking to be followed.
As his owners follow him to the living room, he shows them the rest of the monkey, which he had accidentally torn apart, lying on the floor, in desperate need of repairs.
He looks visibly heartbroken as his owners pick up the monkey, which was left with a few missing limbs and its neck hanging by a thread.
“His little sad eyes, we don’t deserve dogs,” a caption read.
In a later video, Elton’s owners reassured viewers that their pup’s best friend had been fixed, and their emotional reunion left the internet in tears.
While they won’t be able to answer back, dogs can actually understand between 100 and 200 human words. Most dogs are also capable of problem-solving, and some can even learn to count and do simple arithmetic.
Moreover, even though they may not have a perfect understanding of command words, they do understand the basic sounds of important words.
Studies show that dogs respond the same way to nonsense words that sound like familiar command words, and, at the same time, they don’t respond to nonsense words that don’t sound like command words.
The video quickly went viral on social media, getting viewers from across TikTok. It has so far received over 3.4 million views and 367,000 likes on the platform.
One user, Moon.Child, commented: “We own 4 of the exact same stuffy for this reason, our dog even thought they were her puppies when she was in phantom pregnancy. Dogs are the bestest.”
User6993868061043 wrote: “Awww, sweet boy…I would try my best to sew mr monkeys arm back on.”
Lisa Brenchley142 added: “Animal hospital stat. Always buy double from Ikea. My two have virtually all of Ikeas teddies. Awww.”
Newsweek reached out to eltonthegoldenretriever for comment via TikTok chat. We could not verify the details of the case.
Do you have funny and adorable videos or pictures of your pet you want to share? Send them to life@newsweek.com with some details about your best friend and they could appear in our Pet of the Week lineup.
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