Photo: Getty Images
Meet Flambo, the talking dog from Texas who is taking the world by storm one TikTok at a time.
The four-and-a-half-year-old Australian Shepherd goes viral almost every day by showing off his skills, which include communicating his needs, predicting the weather and showing love to his owner — all with the push of a button. Abba Adams has been Flambo's owner for over two years now after adopting him in Wimberly, Chron reports. Adams said she first came up with the idea of pushing buttons to communicate after watching videos of speech pathologists during the COVID-19 pandemic.
"When COVID hit and we had lockdown, Flambo and I were both extremely bored. So in my attempts to try and keep us both sane, we were learning a new trick every day. That's when I found Christina Hunger, a famous speech pathologist, and she slowly developed this method with her dog Stella. The method is very similar to those used for nonverbal students of hers," she said. Flambo has learned 65 words so far, which range from "play" and "ball" to "sleep" and "stranger."
To show off Flambo's skills, Adams started a TikTok account in his name (@flambothedog) — and you'll be blown away with what you're about to watch. Flambo presses the buttons "later," "water" and "storm" to tell Adams that it's going to rain. "You mean rain?" Adams asked, then Flambo pressed the "rain" button. "Um, no water storm later, I don't think," Adams said, but then posted a screenshot of the Houston weather forecast to show that it was, indeed, going to rain tomorrow.
Watch it for yourself:
This next video will tug at your heartstrings! Flambo pressed the buttons "love you" and "mom" to let Adams know how he feels. He then shuffles over to the camera to give Momma some love!
Flambo is also a bit of an attention seeker. He pressed the "look" button to show off a new trick.
Flambo and Adams even got into an argument once. The two went back and forth over whether or not Flambo could play with a decorative toy he took from a shelf.
Adams said the response to her TikToks has been overwhelming. "It's been absolutely amazing to see how many people that he makes happy. We get really sweet messages from people. One that I still remember was from a couple of years ago from a mom with a nonverbal son and she said he absolutely loved watching Flambo and seeing a dog like him who communicates like him and I just thought that was absolutely incredible," she said.