A Texas woman is convinced her rescue dog smiles when he sleeps and thinks she knows why.<\/p>\n
Alexis Hayes from Fort Worth told Newsweek<\/em> she was \u201cscared of big shelter dogs<\/a>\u201d until the day she met Churro. \u201cI just fell in love with him,\u201d she said. \u201cI didn\u2019t even look at other dogs. I said I wanted him and I took him home the next day.<\/p>\n Hayes had been mourning the loss of one of her other dogs when Churro came into her life. \u201cBack in January, Texas had a freeze and my bulldog got out in the night and ended up passing away,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Feeling low and conscious that her 12-year-old senior rescue no longer had a playmate, Hayes decided to adopt rather than shop. That\u2019s when Churro came into the picture. \u201cThe shelter said they picked him up as a stray, but after getting to know him, I think he definitely had a family,\u201d Hayes said.<\/p>\n While Churro\u2019s past remains a mystery, one thing Hayes is almost certain of is that he\u2019s happy in his new home. In a video posted to her TikTok @al3xis.444<\/a>, Hayes shared a clip of Churro, fast asleep with what looks like a smile playing across his face. Writing alongside it, Hayes shared her theory as to why Churro is smiling. \u201cHe\u2019s been home two weeks now and he sleeps with a smile,\u201d she wrote. \u201cI think he knows he\u2019s never going back to the shelter.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Hayes says Churro was \u201cdefinitely\u201d smiling in the video. \u201cI\u2019ve seen him do his relaxed face, and then I see him start to smile,\u201d she said. \u201cThe way he looked so depressed in the shelter, he came to my house with his tail, fully wagging and rolling all over my couch like he had never been on the couch before. Ever since he has been home with me, there\u2019s always a smile when he\u2019s sleeping. His face at the shelter, I haven\u2019t seen that face since.\u201d<\/p>\n There is some debate in the scientific community about whether dogs are capable of smiling<\/a> in the human sense of the word. A 2017 study published in the journal Scientific Reports<\/a><\/em> concluded that dogs do not smile in the human sense, but produce relaxed, open-mouth facial expressions associated with positive emotional states and social bonding, which humans consistently interpret as smiles.<\/p>\n What\u2019s beyond dispute, however, is the way Hayes and Churro have enriched each other\u2019s lives. \u201cAfter getting to know him, he is the biggest baby ever,\u201d Hayes said. \u201cHe\u2019s totally changed my view on big shelter dogs. He\u2019s actually ten times nicer than my smaller shelter dog!\u201d<\/p>\n Hayes has also learned something else about Churro during their time together: he\u2019s deaf<\/a>. She reckons that might explain why he\u2019s less reactive than other dogs of his kind.\u00a0<\/p>\n Whatever the case, Churro\u2019s disability doesn\u2019t hold him back in anything they do together. Churro loves to go on walks and is especially fond of car rides together. \u201cI got him some goggles,\u201d she said. \u201cHe loves to stick his head fully out the window and just enjoy his car ride.So he turned into my copilot.\u201d<\/p>\n Even if Churro may not be smiling in the human sense of the word, he\u2019s definitely smiling on the inside.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n![\"Churro](\"https:\/\/assets.newsweek.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Churro.png?w=640&quality=80&webp=1)