Hands-In Dog Challenge Proves Dogs Are Our Best Teammates
Elizabeth Morey
Who doesn't love a good TikTok challenge, especially when it involves so many cute pets? We think these videos really show that dogs are man's best friends, and they're also our most valuable team players, no matter what the game is.
The latest trend on the Gen Z social media site TikTok is a type of challenge video that involves seeing what your pet will do if you invite it to put its paw in during a team "huddle." It's called the "hands-in challenge."
For this challenge, one person must put a hand out, palm down, and then another person puts their hand on top of that hand. The two people must be sitting near their dog, ideally one on either side of the dog, while performing this task so that the hands are directly in the dog's line of site, physically inviting the pup's participation.
The goal is to see how the dog will react to the strange invitation, with the preferred response being that the dog puts its paw on top of the stack of hands. But of course, other responses are welcome too, the funnier the better!
You might think that the dogs would have a sort of 50-50 response to the game, with some participating as intended and some completely ignoring the hands in front of them or licking the hands or having some other type of reaction. Most of these dogs have probably never seen human behavior quite like this before unless they've been to a lot of sporting events with their humans, so it would be reasonable to think that not all dogs would react in the same way.
But if that's what you thought, you'd be wrong. At least if the TikTok videos are anything to go by, it seems that the vast majority of the animals get it right on the first try (although there are certainly a few videos out there of dogs going some other goofy things like putting their heads in the pile or just jumping on it). They seem to intuitively know what they're supposed to do . It makes us wonder if wild dogs are out there instinctually putting their paws into team huddles on a regular basis.
This challenge seems to be proof that dogs really do understand us, probably better than we realize, and they want to cooperate with us. They're interested in playing along with us, no matter what the game is. We really don't deserve dogs; they're so amazing.
Have you done the hands-in challenge with your dog? We're interested to know how it turned out!
