Chinese family realises their pet dog is actually an endangered bear

A Chinese family discovered their pet dog was actually a bear (Representative image)

A family in China adopted what they thought was a dog, only to discover two years down the line that they had been sharing their home with a bear. This bizarre incident was first reported in 2018 but has gone viral again recently.

According to a report in The Independent, Su Yun bought the bear while on holiday in 2016. She had been led to believe she was buying a Tibetan mastiff puppy.

Since Tibetan mastiffs are large dogs, Yun was initially not surprised to find her ‘dog’ weighed 150 pounds (over 68 kg). However, she began to get suspicious when it kept getting bigger, soon weighing over 250 pounds.

She was also taken aback by how much the ‘dog’ ate. “A box of fruits and two buckets of noodles every day,” she told Chinese media in 2018.

“The more he grew, the more like a bear he looked,” Yun added.

The family then noticed that their beloved pet was walking on its hind legs. Alarmed, they contacted the Yunnan Wildlife Rescue Centre which confirmed their Tibetan mastiff was actually a bear.

“I am a little scared of bears,” Yun said.

The bear was tranquilised and taken to Yunnan Wildlife Rescue Centre, where it was identified as an endangered Asiatic Black Bear. When fully grown, an Asiatic bear can weigh as much as 400 pounds (almost 200 kg). They can fetch thousands of dollars on the black market.