Every dog owner knows that once you put their food down, it can be hard to take it away. They munch away every last piece and lick the bowl clean. But one dog owner was left heartbroken after her polite golden retriever was confused about if he was allowed to tuck into his food.

Olivia shared a clip of the moment her dog Joey stopped eating his food as he waited for a command to continue. He got confused as Olivia’s partner threw a dog toy out of the way. Her viral video, shared on TikTok recently, has been viewed over 5.5million times as people rushed to support the “poor baby”.

The 25-year-old said: “Don’t talk to me for a week, I’m currently recovering from this trauma.” The puppy, who is eight months old, can be seen in the video tucking into his meal, but then he suddently stops and sit in front of the bowl with his head held high.

“I felt awful when I noticed him, he looks so cute while he politely waited to eat,” Olivia told Newsweek.

The West Midlandser saw he was being quiet and went over to see if he was eating. As soon as she told told him it was OK, he began tucking into his meal once again. She gave him a pat and hug after feeling sorry for him.

Olivia explained that Joey always waits for a release command before eating, which he was taught it at three months old. The American Kennel Club reports that golden retrievers are “eager to please [and] easily trainable”, so it’s no surprise that it only took 20 minutes to teach Joey this command.

The release word is when you teach the dog to ‘stay’, before telling them when they are allowed to move with commands like ‘break’ or ‘free’.

However on this occasion, she believes Joey was just confused. Olivia added: “One of us made a random sound but it doesn’t sound anything like wait so I think he just got confused.”

Many dog owners found the clip painful to watch. One rushed to comment, and said: “The poor baby trying to make himself taller so you’ll see him over the counter too.”

Another added: “Stop it, omg he’s so well behaved.” A third wrote: “I’ll never recover from this and this isn’t even my dog.” And a fourth added: “I had to stop watching, that was devastating.”

Meanwhile, another noted: “He was probably so confused to why he was told to sop. He’s such a good boy.” And a further commenter confessed: “I think my heart just broke.”

People joked that Olivia should “apologise to him right now” – but others could relate to the situation.

One said: “Oh man, my dog did this before because we didn’t tell her to ‘go get it,’ and she didn’t eat her food while I was at work. I bawled my eyes out for hours. She got extra treats and lovings.”