Dog Who 'Barely' Broke Two Toenails Puts on Award-Winning Performance

Some dogs are smarter than others, but not all of them can put on an Oscar-winning performance.

One pup taking the internet by storm with their acting skills is Frankie the French bulldog Jack Russell cross, who put on a stellar performance after an injury. In the TikTok video posted to @frankieandgus with over 2.4 million views, Frankie can be seen sitting on the couch, with a heavily bandaged paw. "Here's all of the footage from that night. This is when I discovered Frankie is a VERY good actor, and REALLY smart!" reads the caption.

"It's been a year since Frankie (barely) broke two toe nails," the text adds. The dog can be seen staring directly into the camera. As his owner asks, "show me your poor foot," Frankie repeatedly waves his bandaged back paw, seemingly guilt-tripping his owner into making a fuss.

"He showed his paw the whole evening," reads the text. While Frankie is using his bandaged foot to get his owner's attention, he is also employing some serious puppy-dog eyes.

Researchers from across the U.K. and the U.S. claimed to have found the science behind why a single look from our pups have us reaching for the treat packet. Dogs have a facial muscle, evolved over the last 33,000 years, to make their eyes look bigger and their faces sadder, more puppy-like, and appealing to humans, drawing in every person around.

The paper entitled Evolution of facial muscle anatomy in dogs by Juliane Kaminski et al., said that this could be down to selective breeding over those years. It added that "that humans consciously or unconsciously selected for exaggerated eyebrow movements in dogs, as they would be perceived as markers during communicative interactions.

"During communicative interactions, human observers not only pay particular attention to the upper facial area of other humans but also automatically pay attention to the upper facial area, in particular the eye region, while looking at pictures of animals, including dogs," the researchers said. "As dogs seem to be specifically selected to respond to (and attend to) communicative interactions with humans, flexible eyebrow movements in dogs could have been a side product of that selection process."

The researchers added that wolves, by comparison, "are described as having an intense gaze-signaling face."

Users on TikTok loved the funny video. "My dog got something in his eye and scratched his cornea. For the next 2 years 'his eye hurt' every time he was in trouble," commented one user.

"I have never wanted to squeeze a dog so bad in my life! Sweeeet boy & his hurt foot!" posted another.

Newsweek has reached out to @frankieandgus via TikTok for comment.

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