Kick back, enjoy, and let us know what you think. And PS: we love when you send us your favorites too!

🐶 Viral Video 1: The Puppy vs. The Splash Pad

📹 Watch it here

A little warm-weather enrichment to start us off. This video gets points for sheer cuteness, but also for what it teaches us:

1. Not all enrichment needs to involve food.

2. It’s so easy to weave our own tale about what a dog’s behavior means, but watching behavior and conditions over time will tell the real story.

Throughout the video, the puppy backs away from the water that shoots up. So often when a dog moves away from something, we want to tell a story about how the dog dislikes the thing. Sometimes that is true. But in this case, the puppy is voluntarily and repeatedly behaving to make that stream of water shoot up (which the puppy then backs away from). A perfect reminder to observe closely and avoid jumping to conclusions too quickly.

🐻 Viral Video 2: Down the Slide!

📹 Watch it here

This bear knew exactly what they were doing. They climb the play set like a pro and then zoom—face-first—down the slide. I’d put money on this not being the bear’s first rodeo with a play set. We often focus on ourselves as the sole shapers of our dogs’ behavior. But videos like this are a great reminder: it’s the environment that is the shaper of behavior. Sometimes we’re a part of it. Sometimes we’re not. Behavior doesn’t always revolve around us.

🐦 Viral Video 3: Birds + Dog Fur = Gold

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Viral Video #1: Watch This Dog Performing a Piano Sonata in His Sleep

As a trained flutists, Jess is obviously obsessed with this video of Chester the golden retriever “performing a the famous Alla Turca from Mozart’s Piano Sonata #11 in A Major K331.” Like the poster, I often like to imagine what fun my dog is having in their dreams when I see those little paws start moving. Is Chester performing a concerto in his sleep? Suppose we can’t rule it out - lol. It’s likely that he’s in REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, which according to this article from Elle Vet, is “...a period of increased brain activity when dreams most likely occur. During REM sleep, the brain might send signals to the body resulting in involuntary movements, such as twitching, leg kicks, or even muted barks.” Many researchers believe that dogs do in fact dream – and dream about real life experiences (so who knows, maybe your dog is dreaming of running through their favorite field!). If you want to learn more about dog dreams, here’s an article from AKC that cites a relevant 2001 study out of MIT.

Viral Video #2: The ‘Parent Trap’ Style Secret Handshake Bird Dance You Have to See

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Viral Video #1: Hill Sledding

We’re kicking things off with this video of two dogs sledding down a grassy hill. Now if this were a dog sport, I’m fairly confident I’d pay money to be a spectator. The little white dog puts up some style points for sure. This is an awesome example of naturally occurring reinforcers. So often, the world talks about reinforcement as something a human does. But reinforcement is really something that an individual’s environment does (feedback on their behavior). Reinforcement is a natural part of life on this planet. Sometimes we are our dog’s environment. Sometimes we are not.

Viral Video #2: Border Collies Playing Tetherball?!

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