Golden Retriever Puppy Becomes 'Part Of The Pig Pack' In This Adorable TikTok Video
Animal lovers can't get enough of cute interspecies friendships. Videos of a Doberman with a pigeon sister, a German shepherd with koi fish friends, and a senior golden retriever with an unexpected sister (spoiler alert: it's a ball python) rack up countless likes and adoring comments on social media. You can add to that constantly expanding list a TikTok video showing a golden retriever puppy named Poppi becoming pals with some pigs.
@pearlgoldengirl Can you believe how cute they are? A true love story of a girl and her new friends 🥺🤭
At first, Poppi is frightened and runs away. "They oinked once...and she was outta there," reads the text overlaid on the video. But soon, Poppi decides to come back for another look at these unusual creatures, sniffing them through the fence. She becomes more and more interested in the pigs, wagging her tail happily as she gives them kisses, then she lies on the ground to watch them, looking completely enamored with her new chums. "Now she's officially part of the pig pack," reads the final text.
"Omg she loved her piggy friends," a viewer commented on the heartwarming video. Poppi's owner shared the same video on Instagram, where one viewer wrote, "One brave sniff away from a full-blown rom-com," and another suggested, "House puppy meet mud puppies. Let them play together!"
How smart are pigs?
The pigs in the video show a great deal of interest in Poppi, watching her, sniffing her, and crowding as close to her as possible despite the fence in between them. Pigs sometimes get a bum rap, mistakenly labeled as stupid, dirty, lazy, and greedy, but they're actually intelligent and fastidious creatures. When given enough space, they carefully keep their eating and sleeping areas separate from their toilet areas. Since they are unable to sweat, they roll around in mud to cool off, not because they enjoy being filthy. The mud also helps prevent sunburns.
Pigs are consistently ranked one of the most intelligent animals on the planet, in the same league as chimpanzees, dolphins, elephants, crows, rats, octopuses, dogs, and cats. Pigs can understand many human words and gestures, use a mirror to locate food, play video games, and find their way through mazes, and it's relatively easy to potty train pigs kept indoors. Plus, they demonstrate emotional intelligence, showing emotions such as joy, anxiety, anger, and even empathy.
Given how kind and clever pigs are, perhaps it's no surprise that the oinkers in the video are just as keen to befriend Poppi as she is to become besties with them. We'll happily watch any more videos about canine-porcine friendship that Poppi's owner wants to post.