Dog's Hilarious Reaction to a Lemon Watched 26 Million Times

A dog's hilarious reaction to a lemon is going viral online, with a clip capturing the moment seen more than 26 million times.

His owner shared a video of their pooch, called Branch Cooper, to their TikTok account @allaboutbranch last month.

In it they hold out a lemon to the four-legged friend, which has a segment cut out of it. Branch approaches, but almost immediately jumps up and runs in a circle while snapping at the fruit.

"Scared but spicey," the clip, shared last month, was captioned. A follow-up clip uploaded a few days later captures more of the encounter, and shows Branch barking at the citrus fruit.

Towards the end of the footage the owner rolls the lemon on the floor towards the dog, seeing Branch jump up and down some more, as he reacts in a lively manner.

The owners shared the same video to the Instagram page, where they added a quote supposedly from Branch, saying: "Heckie no mom get that thing away from me."

Branch's brilliant reaction, which can be seen here, has been met with hilarity online, with Houmaira commenting: "I laughed a little too hard at this."

Lorilyn040970 asked: "Why is it sooo spicy."

"How cute," Angelina109 raved.

While Thee Erica Lashay asked: "Um does this need to be a trend like the cats and cucumber? Because this is hilarious."

Responding to questions, Branch's owner explained they don't know what breed he is. "He's a rescue but we think he might have some plott hound in him," they said in the comment section of the video.

And revealing more about his backstory, the first post on Branch's Instagram account, @_allaboutbranch_, from earlier this month, says: "Hey there friends! My name is branch. My famz calls me branchy or land shark for some reason. I got to come live with them in march of 2021 when someone dropped me off after I was born. They feed me snaz and cookies so I'm pretty happy."

Dogs are well known for their dislike of citrus fruit, including limes, oranges and grapefruit, with pet food website Purina going into more detail.

Purina Senior Nutritionist, Jan Dempsey, was quoted saying: "Dogs can taste bitter and they don't like it. While dogs can also taste sour, it's not always a negative. For them, bitter is generally always a negative.

"All citrus fruits contain essential oils and a chemical compound that are toxic to dogs. These are found in the plants, tree parts, the skin, and the pithy white parts."

Newsweek reached out to @allaboutbranch for comment.