Labradoodle learns magic thanks to owner’s love of Harry Potter

‘This is the best thing I’ve ever seen,’ one comment read

Brittany Miller
New York
Friday 23 February 2024 00:59 EST
Comments
Related: Pics of White House dogs

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

One dog has recently been accepted into Dogwarts.

Audriana Li made a TikTok to share the rare tricks her dog has learned, which are all of his basic commands like “drop it” and “sit” using only spells from Harry Potter. Her love for the wizarding franchise has run so deep that she even named her labradoodle after one of the characters from the book, a house elf named Dobby.

“I taught my dog 15 Harry Potter spells,” text across the screen reads as Li films Dobby executing all of them.

For example, the wizards in the book and movie series say “expelliarmus” to make their opponent drop whatever they are holding, and when Dobby the lab hears this command he drops his toy.

Li also uses the command “go to Azkaban” which is the name of the wizarding world’s prison to tell Dobby to go into his crate.

Other commands include “avada kedavra” for “play dead” as well as “accio” for come and “aguamenti” for drink water.

Next was “wingardium leviosa” for jump up and “protego” to get Dobby to tuck himself under her legs.

“Relashio” caused Dobby to back up out of the way with “stupefy” used to mean lay down.

But the themed commands did not stop there.

Li used “immobolus” to mean stay, “duro” for head down and “ascendio” for go up the stairs.

The spell list was rounded off with “confundus” for spin and “glisseo” as a command to jump over.

“So if Dobby responds to Harry Potter spells, does that make him a wizard? Or does that make me a witch casting spells on my muggle dog?” the TikToker questioned in the video’s caption.

“I knew long before Dobby came along that I would train my future dog with Harry Potter spells instead of regular commands. I love feeling like I have real life magical powers every time I ask him to come, stay, or play dead.”

The dog owner even added some fun facts about her spells and how certain commands ended up in the specific way that they did.

Accio (come / recall) was the first spell Dobby learned at 11 weeks old she explained in the caption and while she tried to make “protego” the command for leave it, she kept saying the phrase “leave it” on accident and had to change it to mean “tuck.”

“We tried Petrificus Totalus for stay, but it was too much of a mouthful for a command that’s used frequently, so we opted for Immobulus instead (we’re now working on Petrificus Totalus for “sit pretty”)” the caption read.

After the video was viewed over four million times, many people took to the comments section to praise how unique the training method is.

One person wrote: “Girl, this is the best thing I’ve ever seen,” and Li replied: “Thank you. We have fun with our training.”

“YOUR DOG IS THE SMARTEST DOG EVER!” another commenter praised Dobby for his learning abilities. “And I have five very well behaved lol but they’re muggles.”

“Omg having children who like Harry Potter with that dog,” a third commenter wrote. “They can get a wand and play with him for hours (well I could play with him for hours).”

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in