Henlo: meaning, and how dogs really say hello
greeting · also: henlo frend
henlo: Hello, said by a dog who just learned it.
Henlo is hello in DoggoLingo: a little wrong, very sincere, usually said with the whole back half wagging.
In DoggoLingo
“Henlo. I see you have a sandwich. Henlo, sandwich.”
Use “henlo” in a sentence
Mocha says henlo to every single dog on the walk. Every single one.
Henlo: the real science
How dogs really say henlo
Dogs greet each other nose-first: anal glands make a fluid with a cocktail of compounds that dogs use to communicate, so a polite sniff is the canine handshake. [1] Many dogs also bark when they greet a person or another dog. [2]
Why the misspelling
DoggoLingo loves cute misspellings and eye-dialect spellings of normal words. [3] Henlo is hello put through that filter.
How we got this
The meaning comes from how the word is used online and from slang dictionaries. The science section says only what the linked sources say; we read each one before quoting it. The drawing and example sentences are made up for fun.
Sources
- Why do dogs sniff butts?. American Kennel Club. Supports: Dogs greet by sniffing; anal gland fluid is a cocktail of compounds used for communication.
- Why do dogs bark at each other?. American Kennel Club. Supports: Dogs often bark when greeting a person or another dog.
- DoggoLingo. Wikipedia. Supports: DoggoLingo emerged in the 2010s and peaked around 2017; it adds -o, -er and -ino endings (doggo, pupper, pupperino), uses onomatopoeia like mlem and blep, heckin as an intensifier, doin me a ... verbs, eye-dialect spellings, and calls a human a hooman, a snake a snek and a bird a birb.