Service Dog's Reaction After Falling Asleep at Work Melts Hearts: 'Panic'

A service dog named Oso has melted hearts online after a video of him waking up in a panic after losing track of his owner because of an accidental nap at work went viral on social media.

The clip shared on TikTok on Monday by the dog's owner, under the username Osotheservicedog, shows Oso curled up fast asleep, before his eyes open and realization dawns he has lost track of his owner, a disabled army veteran. The dog quickly gets up and looks around everywhere for his owner.

The post comes with a caption that says: "When you are a service dog fall asleep and lose your human," and, "Panic!!"

It is estimated that about 61 million adults in the United States live with a disability, and according to ShareAmerica.com there are about 500,000 service dogs across the country.

Professional trainers working in specialized facilities can charge as much as $40,000 to train a service dog and the training takes about three years to complete. But not all dogs are suitable for the job, in fact, as many as 50 to 70 percent of the candidates do not complete the training.

There are different types of service dogs—guide or seeing dogs, which are trained to be a support for people who are blind or have low vision; hearing or signal dogs, trained to alert people who are deaf; and psychiatric service dogs, trained to assist individuals with psychiatric disabilities, and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

There are also sensory signal dogs or social signal dogs (SSigDOG), which assist people with autism. And seizure response dogs, trained to assist people with seizure disorders.

The post quickly attracted animal lovers from across the platform, receiving over 1.7 million views and 253,900 likes so far.

One user, December Joy, commented: "Awwww. He's like I'm gonna get fired. Damn It!" And The Grateful Red wrote: "I close my eyes for literally 1 second!!!" Leah Arlington added: "the way he looked around like 'Shoot! where did that hooman go now!?"

Another user, Sassy joked: "He's thinking... 'That's it... I'm getting a bell for my Master!!" And Mary Bish said: "that moment when you realize you fell asleep on the job." Valeria wrote: "I'm gonna get fired for sure. No treats tonight."

Kelly Hatch commented: "He loves you. He looks so concerned when he didn't see you." And Tome by Tome said: "he wasn't sleeping, just resting his eyes." Lizzard joked: "POV: my husband when we go to the store."

Newsweek reached out to Osotheservicedog for comment. We could not verify the details of the case.