When the dogs cry in front of the "Lion King"
The video that went viral on social media in February 2019 was filmed by YouTube user Josh watching a movie with his dog Luna.
While his master, Josh was watching The Lion King on television, Disney's cartoon, Luna was having fun quietly with his toys. When, suddenly, the 4-month-old Pitbull suddenly stops his favorite activity and stares at the screen to follow the most touching sequence of the cult W alt Disney film where Simba, a young lion cub, discovers the lifeless body of his father Mufasa , the King of Lions
The dog seems sad watching this scene and starts moaning. A situation that does not seem isolated according to the words of many dog owners who have noticed the identical behavior of their dogs and have opened up about it on social networks.
Why this reaction? Responses from a behaviorist
To understand the attitude of these dogs towards this kind of images, The HuffPost approached Mylène Genairon, canine behaviorist in Vincennes, in order to decipher Luna's behavior.
According to the behaviorist, young Pibull's moan could be interpreted in several ways:
1) We know that dogs have much more developed hearing than ours and that their ears are therefore very sensitive to the high-pitched sounds emitted by various musical instruments or by devices such as the siren firefighters. The music played during the Lion King sequence could therefore "tickle" the ears of the young animal.
2) W alt Disney has captured the attention of young audiences by giving the animals in his cartoons a physical form very close to reality. For the little Pitbull, Simba's silhouette could therefore quite simply "remind him of a dog" and that, although dogs do not perceive the images shown on television in the same way as human beings.According to the behaviorist interviewed by HuffPost, it would be more precisely certain movements that would attract more attention from dogs and lead them to watch television.
3) The last explanation would be due to the fact that W alt Disney also knew how to endow his characters with human traits and communicative emotions that the dog, the closest pet to humans, would manage to perceive . The animal could also be "contaminated by the emotions" that its master is feeling at the time, upon seeing a particularly moving film scene.
"Now it remains to be seen whether dogs also cry in front of Bambi
"