Hearts have melted at the moment a tiny dog spotted one of his favorite humans after months apart.
TikTok user Chiara, who posts under the username @chiara__dolce, has gone viral for recording the moment she reunited with her boyfriend’s dog, Mylo, for the first time in months, surprising the tiny pomeranian pup on the street.
In a clip posted on March 12, and which has racked up more than 1.2 million views, Chiara recorded herself walking down the street, where the fluffy orange dog is being taken on a walk and is coming in her direction.
She wrote over the video: “Reaction of my bf’s dog seeing me the first time after 2 month (sic).”
At first, Mylo walks right past her—but he suddenly stops, sniffing the air, the ground, and the wall, as though he’s caught her scent.
Chiara then says his name, and he glances towards her. But, as though to be sure, he continues sniffing the ground as he walks up to her, before finally his nose lands on her feet.
Then, after sniffing her feet and recognizing her scent, he’s certain—and he starts jumping up at her, his tail wagging and body wriggling happily as Chiara lets out a shriek of laughter.
It proved hugely popular, with more than 277,000 likes, as one moved commenter wrote: “You smell familiar.”
“They don’t know faces but they know smells and voices,” another said, as yet another pointed out: “When you’re that small it’s kinda hard to see faces!”
A dog’s sense of smell far surpasses that of a human: while humans have about 5-6 million olfactory receptors, dogs have up to 300 million, depending on the breed. Their sense of smell is estimated to be between 10,000 and 100,000 times more acute than a human’s, according to Purina.
Dogs are used for their sense of smell in real-world situations, such as being trained to detect explosives, drugs and even for certain diseases.
While it’s not clear why Chiara was away from Mylo for so long, pet parents often have to travel for work or events, and in some cases owners choose to get a pet camera to keep an eye on their dog while they’re away.
Newsweek has contacted @chiara__dolce via TikTok for comment on this story.
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