Junior Hannah Schendel shares a very special bond with her dog, Monkey, a 3-year-old mini labra- doodle. Schendel and her dog spend lots of time together cuddling, taking pictures and making videos on TikTok.

Schendel first got Monkey in the spring of her eighth-grade year. “I wanted a dog for the longest time,but my mom never let us get one,” she said. “But my grandma died of cancer and we were all really sad so my mom gave in.”

Schendel loves to hang out and cuddle with Monkey but admits that her parents do most of the work. “My parents mostly take care of him because I’m really busy but I walk him when I can,” she said.

Schendel finds time to bond with her mom and her dog on some weekends when they teach Monkeyhow to read. In their most popular videos on TikTok, Monkey hits a card with his paw. The card has the same word as the song or the answer to the question she asks, and Monkey has to correctly identify each card. Many people in the comment section call Schendel out for simply holding a treat behind the sign with the correct word, but this is not the case. Schendel works very hard training Monkey by saying eachword and having him guess until he hits the correct sign. After some practice, Monkey is able to recognizethe sign by Schendel’s command. As of today, Schendel has posted 34 videos on her TikTok with four separate videos of Monkey following commands and hitting the proper signs. Her TikTok account has amassed 32.2k followers and 1 million likes.

Schendel loves her dog dearly and doesn’t know what she would do without him. “He is honestly my best friend and he never fails to brighten my day,” she said. “Sometimes when I am doing homework and he wants attention, he will scratch on the door and it always puts me in a good mood.”

She recommends that people urge their parents to get a dog. Her advice to people who want a dog is to be persistent. “Just keep bugging your parents until they say yes,” she said.