What does this sentence translate to or what does 見ていて and 様子 mean in this context?

Question

Here's the line from NHK easy news:

ザギトワ選手のインスタグラムは世界で４５万人ぐらいの人が見ていて、犬をかわいがる様子が人気になっています。

Link to the news article.

Separating the part before and after comma into two parts,

ザギトワ選手のインスタグラムは世界で４５万人ぐらいの人が見ていて、

What does 見ていて mean here ? My translation is "Zagitova's instagram account is being followed by 450k people" but I am not sure if follow is the correct translation of 見ていて.

犬をかわいがる様子が人気になっています

"The condition of dog being cute is getting popular" doesn't make a lot of sense to me. The confusion here arises mostly because of 様子.

犬をかわいがる様子が人気になっています。

What would be a good English translation for the entire sentence or what do 見ていて and 様子 translate to in this context ?

Answer 1

見ていて -> 見ている -> 見る ( look/see )

The subject of 見ていて is the preceding ４５万人ぐらいの人 (around 450k people)

So, more literally it's "In regards to Zagitova's Instagram, around 450k people (in the world) are looking [at it]", but "follow" can be used too. The -て form is used to connect the two sentences.

For the second part, 犬をかわいがる does not mean "dog is being cute", but "[Zagitova] is playing with/showing affection to the dog" (see かわいがる). Note how を is marking the object of the verb.

Next, 様子 can mean "condition" but in the sense of "appearance/look [usually of someone]". A better meaning in this context is probably "state; state of affairs; situation; circumstances". I.e. it's the scenes/situation of Zagitova petting the dog which makes her Instagram popular.