A Georgian woman who rescued a dog from the streets initially thought he had an attitude problem—until she realized he simply didn’t speak English.
Laneise Hill, 25, lives in Atlanta with her dog, Grayson, which she and her sister, Summer Clark, found on the road running in traffic and in danger of being hit by a car.
They picked up the dog and knocked on doors in the neighborhood, but she told Newsweek: “No one would answer the door for us.”
“We tried multiple times to return the dog and went up to the animal shelters. The shelters then informed us no one has reported the dog missing and if they kept the dog unfortunately he would have to be put down.”
And so, Grayson joined the family—but as she put it, “I did think Grayson was a naughty dog in the beginning”.
“He never fully listened to what I was saying,” she said, adding he had trouble with “basic commands,” would run away from her and was “very hyper” on the leash.
TikTok @slayforeign
But the family figured out the problem, and a video sharing the realization has gone viral on TikTok with over 1.6 million likes and 5.5 million views.
Shared to Hill’s account @slayforeign a week ago, she begins by saying: “I just found out my dog ain’t bad. He just don’t speak English.”
She then proceeds to tell Grayson, in Spanish, to “come here,” and “sit down,” which he does—with the women then praising him with a heartfelt “Bueno!”
TikTok users loved the clip, with one commenting: “He’s excited too like finally something makes sense!”
Another recalled: “My aunt had a Spanish-speaking Yorkie. We thought Bingo was deaf!”
And one joked: “We love a bilingual king.”
Hill told Newsweek she realized Grayson understood Spanish when she and her sister were talking about a previous vacation to the Dominican Republic and included some Spanish in their conversation.
“We noticed Grayson started responding to everything we were saying. Once we realized, I started to use broken-up characters in Spanish as commands for him and he started to get excited and listen.”
TikTok @slayforeign
A 2022 study from the Department of Ethology at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, Hungary, found that dogs can discern between a language they know and one unfamiliar to them.
Researchers used 18 dogs of different breeds as well as an MRI machine to track their brain activities while reading to them in Hungarian and Spanish, They then compared the brain scans, particularly the secondary auditory cortex.
The study, published in NeuroImage, indicated the dogs could tell the difference between the language they were regularly immersed in, and one unfamiliar to them, despite the fact that what was being read to them did not include basic commands that would be recognizable to a dog.
Hill, a social media content creator and healthcare billing coordinator, said she felt “overwhelmed” at the love her video has received, as everyone “loves the new ‘Mexican dog.'”
“He’s such a blessing to me, and I hope to continue to make great memories.”
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.
