She is only 2 years old, but she understood fear better than many adults. In Gao’an, in China’s Jiangxi province, a girl saw her dog cowering and trembling from the roar of Chinese New Year fireworks. She did not hesitate for a second: she covered his ears with her little hands and stroked his head to calm him.
The video went viral because it captures something science supports. Dogs hear with far greater sensitivity than we do, and a firecracker is not just noise to them: it is a threat they do not understand. Marta Amat, from the Hospital Clínic Veterinari at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, explains it this way: not knowing when the roar will come or how long it will last causes more anxiety than the intensity of the sound itself.
Without knowing it, the girl did exactly what experts recommend: stay close and provide reassurance. Sometimes the instinct to care needs no explanation.