Watch This Black Lab Go Statue-still After Encountering Some Cat Halloween Decorations on TikTok
I've never seen a dog stay so still. Somehow, Maverick the Labrador retriever's statue impression is impressive, funny, and a little unsettling.
Maverick, who does not like cats, went outside earlier this month to find some Halloween decorations—some black cats staked into the ground. Our pup froze like an early 2000s computer screen.
One of his owners, Lilly Flores, captured his 50-second pause and posted it to TikTok, where it's received more than 10.5 million views since it was posted Oct. 9. In the comments, TikTok users joked that he'd been "paused" or that he was glitching somehow.
"It's like somebody just froze him in place," his owner, Adam Flores, told CNN, possibly referring to Medusa?
So why is he doing this? Instincts, according to Justin McGill, who runs Hunters Point Kennels in Iowa. Maverick isn't a pointer breed, but McGill and others breed Labs to point.
"He was pointing. He wasn't scared," he told CNN, noting that Maverick's tail didn't indicate fear.
In fact, after nearly a minute of stillness, the tail seems to give some happy wags when one of Maverick's owners finally gets him to unfreeze. Maybe he finally realized those cats weren't real.