A Labrador in the Argentinian city of General Roca has become a local attraction and an online sensation for a very peculiar reason – he spent at least three days staring at the blue wall of a bus station and no one can explain why.

The dog, named Chicho by social media users who didn’t know his real name, spends most of his time at a blue bus stop in the Stefenelli neighborhood of General Roca. Whether he is standing on all fours or sitting, he keeps his eyes glued to the blue wall of the station, as if paying attention to something or someone that nobody else can see. In a video that has been doing the rounds on Latino social media, people are trying to distract Chicho or drive him away from the wall, but he keeps wagging his tail and staring at it. So far, no one has been able to explain why.

Photo: video screengrab

Earlier this week, a local veterinarian told Argentinian news site Puntal that Chicho had been staring at the blue wall for three straight days. Although he sometimes took a short break, he always came back and resumed his curious ritual. The vet said that he couldn’t offer a logical explanation for the animal’s behaviour, and could only speculate that Chicho was waiting for someone to come at the station, although that wouldn’t explain the staring at the wall.

A video of Chicho with his eyes glued to the wall has been viewed over a million times on various social networks, with some users offering their own theories for his behaviour. Some said that the animal was blind – which was later ruled out by the local vet – while others claimed that he must be able to see ghosts, or that he has Alzheimer’s.

Chicho’s unexplainable staring has even attracted the attention of the Discovery Channel, which asked the original poster of the viral video for permission to use it in a TV segment.

 

Although some sources speculated that Chicho was a stray or that he had recently been abandoned by his owner, Crisitian Aedo, the person who posted the viral video of the staring canine, told ANR that he is a familiar sight in Stefenelli and that his owner lives near the blue bus stop. He added that the dog’s real name is Indio (much better than Chicho, imo) and that he regularly stares at that wall.

Following the dog’s meteoric rise to fame on social media and in the city of General Roca, his owner decided to take him away from the station by force and keep him in his yard, for fear that someone could kidnap him or harm him in some way.

As for the reason for the staring, the dog’s owner is apparently just as clueless as the rest of us.