Pet passion: 50 million express animal emotions online after dogged detective tracks down lost canine sparking tearful reunion with Chinese owner
- After the dog had been missing for almost a month, its owner hired a pet detective from Shanghai to track it down
- As pet ownership grows in China, there has been a parallel increase in the number of pet detective agencies
The tearful reunion of a Chinese woman with her missing dog has sent Chinese social media into an emotional spin.
A video of the woman, from Hubei province in central China, crying as she embraces her returned dog went viral on Weibo, a Chinese social media platform.
The January 8 clip of the human-canine soulmates reuniting has been viewed by more than five million people online.
It shows the tearful woman in a woollen hat hugging her brown-haired dog in front of a group of villagers.
The fluffy canine had been missing for almost a month, and she became so desperate for its return that she spent 6,000 yuan (US$885) on a pet detective from Shanghai to help find it.
The doggy sleuth, surnamed Liu, has been an animal gumshoe for more than a decade and has recovered more than 1,000 pets in that time.