I sometimes wonder if our pets have a special, sixth sense. My cat can always somehow tell when my kids or I are sick, and come and sit on our chests and purr. It’s said that when Eliza, the wife of Edgar Allan Poe, lay dying of tuberculosis, their beloved calico Cattarina would not be moved from her side. They’ve even trained dogs to sniff out cancer, sense oncoming seizures, and other medical situations. Clearly, animals can sometimes sense these things. And maybe that’s what’s going on with the Newfoundland dog in this video, who has suddenly decided that the little boy in his charge will not be going off to school that day. Perhaps he knew something that the rest of his family did not.

This is not the first time we’ve seen a giant, fluffy Newfie get stubborn about walking their human “children” to school. Another recent video, of a Newf who refused to take his little girl to school, caused people watching to get suspicious that he’d had a premonition of doom about her school day.

Related: Newfoundland Dog Who Walks Sister to Bus Stop Every Day For Years Decides He Doesn’t Want to Let Her Go

But in this case, the dog was definitely in the right.

A Bad Feeling

In the video, the black and white dog (a Landseer Newfoundland) lies down in the middle of the sidewalk and refuses to keep walking with his boy toward school. The little boy is pulling hard on the dog’s leash, as the dog gives serious side eye to the mom taking the video, as if to say, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this. He shouldn’t be going to school.”

Maybe they should have listened to the dog. Within a few hours, the family got a call to go pick the kid up at school. Apparently, he was sick with a stomach bug.

Look, I’m not medical practitioner, but I don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibility hat this dog already knew. Their sense of smell is strong. Whatever was going on in that boy’s system, it’s entirely possible that the Newfie already sensed it. He could smell it on his skin or breath. Even humans know that “sick” smell. And dogs can smell things thousands of times better than we can.

Dogs Who Smell Disease

There have been several studies to see if dogs are capable of smelling diseases and other medical conditions, from cancer to diabetes to Parkinson’s disease and even COVID.

Moreover, some service dogs are trained to alert their charges to subtle changes in their behavior which could indicate coming medical events, such as seizures, strokes, diabetic illness or migraines. These dogs have undergone extensive training to detect these kinds of things, which includes not only learning to spot the issue, but also how best to alert the humans around them and protect them.

This Newfie has not been trained, so all he could do was protest.

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