Dog's Face As She Finds Owner After Frantically Searching for Her in Crowd
Hearts have melted over a dog's reaction to seeing her owner coming home, after waiting eagerly for her at the train station.
Amy McGowan, 31, is from Scotland but has traveled to many different countries, each time being forced to leave behind her family's West Highland white terrier, Bonnie. The dog, now 10, joined the family a year before McGowan moved away, as she told Newsweek: "I got to spend so much time with her in her first year. But then I had to move.
"I always would miss her terribly and hated not being able to tell her where I was going. So, we started to bring her to the train station when I would be leaving or coming back," McGowan said. She added Bonnie now knows that going to the arrivals side of the rail tracks means McGowan is coming home.
Having spent much of her twenties in London, and the past year traveling across multiple countries with stop-offs back home, McGowan is now in Scotland—and her dog's reaction says it all.
In a video shared to her account @spillthetea_93 on December 19, McGowan walks down the platform after getting off her train, and in the near distance, her stepfather can be seen waiting with Bonnie on a leash.
McGowan is hidden among other travelers on the platform, and Bonnie can be seen looking into the face of each one eagerly, her ears perked up and her tail starting to wag as McGowan gets closer, the dog possibly picking up on her scent.
And the moment Bonnie sees her owner, the reaction is instant: the tiny dog bolts toward McGowan, jumping up on her legs with her tail wagging furiously.
"Appreciating the small moments like your dog looking and finding you in a crowd," McGowan wrote over the video, adding in a caption: "Obsessed with her."
TikTok users were hugely moved by the clip, viewed over 200,000 times, as one commenter wrote, "No I love dogs so much," and another said: "We really are their whole world."
"There's nothing more precious than this," a third posted, while a fourth commented that they were "sobbing."
McGowan said Bonnie always has this reaction, but "this was the first time I've recorded her."
"The fact that my presence is just enough, and then that night she seems to sleep even more soundly knowing that, finally, I'm back—it's like she's feeling satisfied that she's done her job of getting me home to the house as our protector."
Westies like Bonnie are known for their loyal and happy nature, being lovey-dovey and always faithful toward family, according to the American Kennel Club. In 2023, Westies made 43 on the list of the AKC's most popular breeds.
McGowan called the adored family pet a "constant in the whirlwind that has been my life for the past few years."
"She's always the same amazing dog, and that's what I love about her," Bonnie's owner said.
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