'Wholesome' Moment Golden Retriever Looking for Owner Finally Spots Them

A golden retriever had the most adorable reaction imaginable after spotting its human's face off in the distance.

In a video posted to TikTok under the handle jules.meetsworld, Juliet the golden retriever can be seen desperately searching for her owner in a busy crowd of people.

Sitting up high in a parked car, her head turns from left to right as she tries to find her human friend. Unbeknownst to her, Juliet's owner had spotted this and was already filming her canine's response.

After several moments spent looking back and forth, Juliet spots her human. Her expression changes almost instantly from one of mild panic to unmitigated joy. It's clear Juliet recognizes the face as that of her human.

Commenting alongside the clip, her owner described her dog's reaction as "wholesome." It's certainly that, but the clip also highlights the fact her dog definitely recognizes her face.

Scientists have long pondered whether or not canines are capable of recognizing human faces. A 2015 study published in the scientific journal PeerJ concluded that dogs are capable of recognizing faces in much the same way humans and primates do.

More significantly, they concluded that a canine's ability to recognize faces was an innate skill rather than something that was learned through association with things like food.

As part of the study, eight dogs were trained to lie down without sedation or restraint while they underwent a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scan.

During the scan, they were shown a series of images and videos of humans, dogs and objects. They found that six of the dogs were able to focus on the images for a duration of around 30 seconds, which gave researchers enough time to accurately measure their neural response.

Tellingly, they found that the neural response generated by the faces did not originate out of the reward system area of the brain but in a specialized region of the temporal cortex that has been previously associated with processing faces. This was the area that lit up when human or dog faces appeared, rather than when objects were on screen.

Juliet certainly lit up when she saw her owner. In truth, it's been something approaching love at first sight for her owner too. They had been reeling from the death of their previous dog, Romeo, when they first met Juliet.

"It was actually a very spur-of-the-moment decision," she told Newsweek. "I never wanted to get another puppy after Romeo passed away but a good friend of mine knew someone selling golden retriever puppies."

In many ways it was a case of being in the right place at the right time. "They had issues getting rid of the last one and she thought I would be the perfect owner for her," Juliet's owner said. "When I went to go see her, she was the last puppy left. All her siblings already went home with their new owners.I took her home that same day and she changed my life forever!"

Juliet helped her owner to recover from the loss of Romeo and learn to love again. They have been enjoying adventures together ever since. "Our favorite things to do are go to the beach, swimming and taking long car rides for ice cream!"

Judging from the look on Juliet's face, those feelings of love and contentment are definitely mutual.

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