As election day approaches at breakneck speed, many Americans find themselves on either side of what appears to be a gigantic chasm. On one side are supporters of Republican nominee Donald Trump, and on the other are supporters of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. Throughout the campaign, both sides have clashed through heated rhetoric and, at times, even physical fights.
With this divide as the basis for one of its advertisements, the dog food company Pedigree set out to see if it could bring the two sides together using an adorable Golden Retriever. Pedigree's plan involved sending a woman in a Hillary 2016 shirt to a Trump rally with a dog she pretended was lost. The company then sent the same woman and dog to a Clinton rally dressed in a Trump 2016 shirt to do the same thing.
"Right now, we are a country very much divided," the ad says. "This election has brought out the worst in us. We sought to remind people what brings out the good."
The delightful dog's presence and the search for his owner brought people at the rallies together. They did not care much about their differing political opinions once the pup was close by. Pedigree's social experiment showed that the only thing needed to bring people across the partisan chasm that appears so gigantic at first glance is a shared love for dogs.
Everybody in the video agreed: dogs are better than politics.
"I love that, apparently, when it comes to dogs, there's no political party," one Clinton supporter said.
"We do agree that we love dogs and dogs love us," a Trump supporter noted.
"We have our differences but everyone loves dogs," a man in a Reagan/Bush shirt said at the end of the video.