• Seven lost dogs manage to return to their village after a long journey
• The video has racked up hundreds of millions of views online

Social media users in China have been sharing a video showing seven dogs that had gone missing from their village before managing to walk back over 17 kilometers—a story that quickly spread across the internet.

The video, first posted on March 15, shows the dogs walking together along a highway in Changchun, the capital of Jilin province in northeastern China, despite nighttime temperatures dropping below freezing.

The group included different breeds, such as Golden Retrievers, Labradors, German Shepherds, and Pekingese, led by a Corgi known locally as “Dabang.”

The clip quickly went viral, surpassing 230 million views, prompting volunteers at stray dog rescue centers to mobilize out of concern for the animals’ safety in the cold weather.

A volunteer named Tong Tong said she began searching for the dogs in nearby villages after seeing the video, posting flyers about the missing dogs, and later using a drone to help locate them, especially after snowfall in the city.

By March 19, reports confirmed that the dogs had successfully returned to their village.

Three of them belonged to a woman who had been searching for them for four days, only to be surprised when Dabang reentered her home.

The rest were found in nearby villages after being cared for by local residents.

The exact reason for the dogs’ initial disappearance is unknown; some internet users speculated they were stolen, while others thought they had simply lost their way.

Local authorities later clarified that the dogs left the village on their own, following a female German Shepherd that was in heat.

The incident sparked widespread reaction online, with some joking that the dogs’ adventure could be made into a film or a real-life cartoon, while others expressed how moved they were by the story, emphasizing that dogs remain some of humanity’s most loyal friends.