Is That Dog Actually a … Human?

He sits forlornly on a floating staircase, his body slightly slumped and his limbs in his lap, gazing out floor-to-ceiling windows into the summer foliage beyond. He seems to be contemplating something — perhaps the meaning of life itself — as the camera shifts around to the front to reveal his true condition. He’s not a man; he’s a goldendoodle.

This video, taken by the dog’s owner, Lawrence Skutelsky, is captioned “Trying to find the zipper on my goldendoodle after this,” and it has been viewed on TikTok more than 87 million times. Posted on May 24, it joined a pantheon of similar videos from other goldendoodle owners documenting the humanlike behavior of their pets — and prompted a host of new additions to the genre.

Naturally, many viewers on TikTok are now joking that dogs — particularly goldendoodles, a designer breed that is a cross between a golden retriever and a poodle — may actually be people trapped in dog bodies.

“Does anybody else’s dog sit on them like a literal human child or is it just mine?” Chloe Covington asked in a video she posted last year with her goldendoodle, Gemma, sitting upright on her lap. Others have shared clips of goldendoodles sitting on the stairs like Mr. Skutelsky’s dog or standing like a person.

Back in 2020, a woman named Molly Dolan, who lives in Charleston, S.C., posted a video of her goldendoodle walking upright on two hind legs across the entire street — and it has been viewed about 6.5 million times to date.