The relationship between dogs and service workers is a deep and complex one. One of the most famous (and hilarious) relationships is between dogs and mailmen! They just seem to be a funny duo, with dogs always wanting to chase them and mailmen just wanting to do their job.
Dogs and mailmen have a funny relationship, mostly because of how a dog thinks.
All dogs are “pack minded” and many dogs are protective over their pack. In the wild, wolves would guard the land and resources that their pack owner. That behavior is still in dogs today!
If a dog senses someone on their “land” who is a stranger, they will try to deter them.
Mailmen are constant disruptors of boundaries, coming into the “protected realm” under a dog’s care. Most times, a dog barks to try to scare them away. Thus, we have the classic mailman and dog relationship!
If you aren’t a threat, most dogs will shower you with love.
Dogs are conditioned to be fine around humans and so most of them don’t have issues with strangers. There are some dogs, though, that treat strangers a bit differently!
Joshua Byrne noticed his dog was acting differently when the garbage truck came around.
As owners, it is our job to notice behaviors that aren’t normal in our pets. Joshua noticed that his dog, Shelby, was acting a bit strange when the garbage truck would come each week.
The event kept happening and Joshua wanted to investigate.
Dogs are much more sensitive to sounds that humans are. With large trucks having squeaky brakes, he thought it might have something to do with the behavior. When a large vehicle hits its brakes and causes them to squeal, this can be annoying and even harmful for dogs.
When Joshua realized it wasn’t the brakes, he thought it might be the machinery.
Garbage trucks are incredibly loud. Most of them have machinery on them that compresses the trash and makes a ton of noise. The ones that have robotic arms on them are even louder!
Wanting to get to the bottom of the issue, Joshua decided to set up a camera.
Setting up the video recorder, Joshua waited. He realized that the chain that Shelby was hooked up to could reach all the way to where the garbage was, giving him some more clues to what was going on.
Once he saw the chain reached the trash cans, he knew the garbage truck had something to do with it.
It obviously had something to do with the garbage man and not the truck, because the chain couldn’t reach all the way to the truck!
Sitting and waiting, the truck finally pulled up with Shelby outside.
As the man got outside to take the trash, Shelby started running full speed at the unsuspecting man! With his head down, he couldn’t see the dog barreling straight towards him!
Screeching to a halt and pulling up short, Shelby started to say hi to the man!
Everything started to make sense for Joshua. The garbage man dropped what he was doing and started petting and hugging Shelby. There wasn’t anything strange happening with the truck; Shelby had just made a new friend!
After uploading the video, it went viral, being seen over 10.5 million times!
This goes to show that a dog truly can make friends with anyone. People seemed to love the cute encounter, too!
Check out the video below!
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