YouTubeA video titled "Dog buries his puppy in Iraq" is the latest YouTube clip to go viral. Which is surprising, since the video is heartbreaking it makes the footage hard to watch even once.
Uploaded by a user named WhoIsYourBaghdaddy (clever) on June 12, little is known about the video except what is shown: A dog comes across a dead puppy in a ditch in the Middle East, presumably, and takes the time to bury the body in sand.
Watch, if you think you can handle it. There is a silver lining, of sorts:
The silver lining is that, while terribly sad, what funeral—if you will—isn't? Some could look at the video and say it's quite touching, watching a dog mourn for one of its own (some have speculated that the dog might even be related to the puppy).
"They have been doing this for centuries. Just the first time many are seeing it," one YouTube commenter writes. "Even elephants pay respect to their dead. It's us who act like the ignorant ones!!"
Others have taken a more cynical approach to the video, claiming that the dog could simply be burying the puppy in the same vein a dog would bury a bone. There is no silver lining looking at it this way.
Which is why we choose to believe the first: That dogs are capable of mourning the death of their one. A fact, says one veterinarian (according to HealthyDay.com via Yahoo), "Grief is one of the basic emotions dogs experience, just like people."
Isn't it better to watch this video assuming it really is a random act of kindness? We think so.