Pet Cam Captures Dog's Sad Behavior for Hours After 'Misunderstanding'

A pet owner has shared footage of the moment her Labrador somehow convinced herself she wasn't allowed to eat her lunch anymore.

In a video posted to TikTok under the handle ToastLabrador, Toast the yellow lab can be seen anxiously waiting for her owner to return home. Toast's owner Jonna, who is from the Netherlands but is currently studying in Latvia, told Newsweek it was all a "bit of a misunderstanding."

The American Kennel Club ranks Labradors among the most trainable dog breeds. Stephanie Gibeault, a certified professional dog trainer and expert on animal behavior, wrote: "Labrador Retrievers' outgoing nature and eager-to-please personality make them a preferred breed for service work."

Toast certainly fits the bill in that respect. Jonna is studying to be a veterinarian and got Toast from a show line breeder during her first year at university.

Toast is due to turn 2 in December and has certainly been put through her paces up until this point. "Toast is a calm and super friendly lab. She's quite smart and absolutely loves training together and doing puzzles. We enjoy agility, trick training, dog shows and a little bit of rally together," Jonna told Newsweek. "From day one I've been training a lot with her, especially an implied wait in regards to food because labs can be a bit too excited about food."

Toast is very disciplined when it comes to her food. "If I set down or throw food on the ground she now automatically waits," Jonna said. "This was very important to me because of safety reasons so we spent a lot of time training this. She's a real people pleaser so she really wants to do the right thing."

Unfortunately, in this instance, Toast's desire to please left her in the unfortunate situation of being left all afternoon alongside a full bowl of food. "Before I left I released her to eat her frozen food," Jonna explained. "While I was away she heard something outside, stopped eating and turned around. Then when she turned back, she thought she had to wait for permission again so she sat for her food."

Unfortunately, Jonna had left the house at this point. "So over the course of 5 hours she left the food, and didn't take another bite until I got home and told her she could." The resulting stand-off was captured on Jonna's petcam. On the video Toast can be seen sitting and then standing stoically next to the bowl.

Despite the misunderstanding leaving Toast feeling hungry, Jonna was quietly impressed at her Labrador for resisting temptation. "I'm still very proud that she had the impulse control to leave it for so long when I wasn't even there, even though she was hungry just because she thought it wasn't allowed," she said.

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