Tail of loyalty as dog limps in sympathy
PAW bloke! A man’s best friend takes pity on his injury and mimics him by hopping along on three legs.
Russell Jones, on crutches and with a crocked right leg in plaster, shared footage of beloved lurcher Bill hobbling along beside him.
Russell was initially concerned the pup was also injured and took him to the vet took an x-ray.
The medic found no physical ailments and instead suggested he was mimicking his owner’s behaviour.
Russell, believed to be from London, posted the video on Facebook and wrote: “Cost me £300 in vet fees and X-rays, nothing wrong just sympathy. Love him.”
Russell, whose film has been viewed more than two million times, is seen limping towards his house and entering his front garden as his trusty furry friend looks on.
Viewers were smitten, with one commenting: “He’s come out in sympathy with you!” A second said: “He’s copying you. That’s brilliant!
Though you have my sympathy for the vets bill.A third social media user called the pup “unbelievable”, adding: “Aren’t they so in tune with us. Bless him.”
Canines are known to imitate owners even if the behaviour is not in their best interest, a study by the Universities of Oxford and Vienna found in 2017.
The dogs “brought with them a tendency to imitate hand use and/or paw use by their owner – to imitate these actions even when it was costly to do so, when imitation interfered with the efficient performance of an ongoing task.”
The authors, whose study confirmed “the first evidence of automatic imitation” by dogs, added: “Dogs are special animals, both in terms of their evolutionary history of domestication and the range and intensity of their developmental training by humans.
“Both factors may enhance the extent to which dogs attend to human activity.”