Imagine walking into a room only to see your pooch sittin’ upright like a hooman. Your reaction? Well, one owner named Brittany put it this way: “My dog is a weirdo bro.” She posted the caption with a hilarious pic on Twitter and it went viral with a whopping 1.2M likes and 192K retweets.

It soon turned out that Brittany is not the only parent whose beloved doggo acts like he ain’t one. Apparently, sitting like a human with an uncanny resemblance is a trick many dogs do. The motif remains unknown, but it doesn’t make the sight any less hilarious. "Man tell him to pay the bills that ain't no dog,” said one caption. So, let’s take a look at the viral Twitter thread of dogs being weird, aka acting hooman and loving it.

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Image credits: ohmyitsbrittt

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Image credits: MarshmalowMatty

Bored Panda spoke with Tamsin, the mom of the dog named Rhubarb in the image above, about the hilarious moment she spotted her sitting like a human.

“It was in the morning, my partner and I have been working from home and we put on the TV in the background whilst we work, and we looked up,” recounted Tamsin, “and noticed her sitting upright on the sofa watching the program with us.” Tamsin thought it was absolutely hilarious, especially as her Cavapoo dog was only 4 months old at the time. “It was such funny behavior for a puppy.”

And it’s not the only human-like thing Rhubarb does. “She loves watching TV, she often groans if you do something she doesn't agree with, which is quite funny, and she loves to stand on two feet.” Yep, not only does she sit like a hooman, she walks like one too.

Tamsin isn’t sure where this behavior is coming from, but she guesses “with all of us being at home during lockdown, our dogs are picking up on people behaviors.”

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Image credits: LisaTheGemini_

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Image credits: AinLyin

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Image credits: tamsinamy_

When it comes to dogs, the reason for most of their behavioral quirks remains unknown. But Wag Walking blog on pets suggests that some dogs “have grown to develop an anatomical preference for sitting in different positions, especially those with long hind legs and top-heavy bodies.”

And even if this human-like posture doesn’t look particularly comfy for the dog, it may offer “some relief to hip or back stress, typically by supporting the lumbar region and centering the weight of a dog’s chest over the rest of the body.”

Another possible explanation is that by sitting upright, dogs stand at a higher vantage point and show signs of dominance.