Some might be a little bit nervous when meeting a creature that is more than 10x the size of you.
But Skipper, a 1-year-old Australian Shepherd, wasn’t scared one bit when he came face-to-face with a humpback whale.
Skipper is used to seeing whales. His mom Nancy Black owns Monterey Bay Whale Watch in Monterey, California.
So, you’ll often find him on one of their expedition boats. He comes whale watching all the time.
Still, Skipper usually hangs out in the pilot house.
But when a friendly whale approached the boat and got up close and personal recently, it was the first time Skipper had ever been that close to a whale.
“Here at Monterey Bay Whale Watch dogs are always welcome aboard our vessels to join their families whale watching. Sometimes we get lucky and get a super friendly whale that wants to people watch, and Skipper, the 1-year-old Australian Shepherd, seemed to love the whales too and he was just as excited as we all were!” the company wrote in a caption for the video of the encounter.
The folks at Monterey Bay Whale Watch said the super close encounter with these whales are “extremely rare” and “not something we see every day.”
“Our Vessel was in neutral the whole time and friendly whales approached us on their own,” the company said.
And Skipper absolutely loved it! The look of wonder and excitement on his face was so sweet that a video of his encounter with the whale went viral.
“This was definitely his first close encounter,” videographer Evan Brodsky of Monterey Bay Whale Watch told HuffPost.
Even when the whale blew water out of his blow hole loudly, Skipper wasn’t scared at all. He was super excited and seemed like he wanted to get closer.
“My favorite reaction of Skipper is when he put his [paws] up on the rails to get a better look at the whale,” Brodsky said.
There were actually two whales, but only one of the came close to the boat to stick his head out of the water.
It was almost as if the whale knew it was putting on a show. He flopped around back and forth and blew out his blow hole. And the whales hung around for quite a while.
“Over the whole two hours he [Skipper] was mostly silent just trying to figure out what was going on,” Brodsky told For the Win.
The video of Skipper’s encounter with the whales was viewed more than 125,000 times on YouTube.
People were obsessed with his sweet reaction seeing these whales so close.
“Your pup is very observant and excited about this beautiful gentle giant, pleasant to watch this video,” wrote one commenter.
“Not just what Skipper sees. I can’t even begin to imagine what wondrous smells he’s picking up! Don’t forget a dog’s amazing sense of smell!” said another.
Apparently, a whale’s breath, which comes out when they use their blow hole, smells pretty awful.
National Geographic described it as a mix of “fart and fishiness.” Skipper didn’t seem to mind though.
Check out his reaction to seeing the whales in the video below.
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