The real reason that pack of dogs were following the ‘brave’ corgi home revealed
The story of a pack of kidnapped stray dogs destined for the meat market before escaping and embarking on a treacherous journey home appears to have been too good to be true.
The ragtag group of Corgis, Golden Retrievers and German Shepherds were reportedly snatched from their homes in a village in rural China on March 16.
Destined to be turned into meat, they managed to chew through their cage and escape the van, according to the South China Post.
The group were allegedly led by a brave Corgi, named by the internet as Big Fat, spawning thousands of memes and AI content.
In the original video, the dogs formed a tight block around a German Shepherd reported at the time as being badly injured during the escape. The clip captured the hearts of the internet with more than 90 million likes on Douyin, China’s version of TikTok and Weibo and spawning hundreds of global headlines.
But now CNN has delivered a debunking of the tale – which Metro published – claiming to have gotten to the bottom of why the dogs were sticking together- one of them was on heat.
All of the dogs belonged to villagers who lived a few kilometres from the highway where they were filmed, according to the Chinese state-owned City Evening News.
After tracking down the owners, it was revealed that the German shepherd had been in heat, which is why other dogs were drawn to it.
Most dogs in the village were free-roaming and often disappeared for a day or two during their heat cycle, Cover News added.
The seven dogs in question have since returned home, with the German shepherd now restrained on a leash until its heat cycle ends.
CNN reported that people were so desperate for positive content, especially featuring animals, that they quickly spread the meat wagon lie.
‘This sort of content can prove incredibly popular and can go viral. And so that does mean that it can be quite an effective way to build up an account’s numbers very quickly’, Tama Leaver, professor of internet studies at Curtin University in Perth, Australia told CNN.
There were fears the story could provoke retribution against Chinese people abroad enforcing the stereotypes around China’s rapidly declining dog meat trade.
