Shocking Ring doorbell footage showing the moment a woman caught her dog after it jumped out of a window has gone viral.
The video was posted in Reddit’s “Made Me Smile” forum on Sunday by an anonymous poster under the username u/pakooa. The post has garnered more than 52,000 upvotes and over 960 comments while highlighting the kind of separation anxiety many pets may be experiencing as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The video opens with the woman—an Englishwoman named Rachel Green—standing at her front door, talking to a delivery driver. About two seconds into their conversation, however, Green cut the driver off and pushed past him.
“Oh my god, stand back,” she shouted.
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A moment later, Green’s dog came flying out of an upstairs window.
“Oh my god,” she said again as she caught the dog in her arms.
Though Green managed to break the dog’s fall, the dog’s hind legs still made contact with the ground. To ensure her dog wasn’t seriously hurt in the fall, Green picked up the dog and checked her for injuries. Thankfully, the dog turned out to be “absolutely fine.”
“[M]y dog is absolutely fine and suffered nothing more than a sore leg for a couple of hours,” Green told LADbible. “Lucky!”
Green went on to say that her dog had never jumped out of a window before and blamed the behavior on the pandemic.
“She’s always been an independent dog but I guess she’s become clingy since the pandemic/WFH and always wants to be by my side. I just didn’t realize how far she’d go to do that,” she said.
As it turns out, Green’s dog might not be the only pet experiencing separation anxiety as a result of the pandemic.
According to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) in the U.K., a study from Dogs Trust saw an increase in “clinginess and attention-seeking behaviors as well as fear or frustration associated behaviors” from dogs during the pandemic. The behaviors stemmed from owners being home with their dogs 24/7 during lockdowns.
To help dogs conquer their “clinginess” and separation anxiety, the RSPCA advised pet owners still working from home to give their furry friends more alone time by leaving the house or by keeping their dogs in separate rooms while completing tasks. The organization also encouraged owners to keep interactions with their dogs to a minimum during the day.
“Don’t completely ignore your dog as this may confuse them, but do give them something better to do, like lay in a comfy bed or chew on a tasty chew. This should help to settle them,” the RSPCA said.
As it turns out, Green isn’t the first woman to heroically save her dog. Last summer, a New Zealand woman threw her dog to safety before dying in a house fire. A month later, a 74-year-old woman from Florida fought off an alligator to save her dog from an attack.
In March, a woman rescued her 14-pound Yorkie after it was attacked by a cougar.
