These dogs that have been painted orange and black to look like tigers may look cute but critics have hit out at the zoo responsible.
Video footage shows a Chow Chow running around while covered in the paint at the Qinhu Bay Forest Animal Kingdom zoo in Taizhou, China.
Other pictures shared show two other Chow Chow dogs, that are native to China, also covered in paint.
The zoo soon admitted it had all been a ‘gimmick’ and said there was no health risk to the dogs because the dye was put on professionally.
Beady-eyed social media users on Douyin, China’s version of TikTok, were quick to notice these were definitely not big cats.
One person simply wrote: ‘Isn’t that just a dog?’
Others then decided to get in on the zoo’s joke, with one user sharing a picture of their cat, jokingly captioning it: ‘My black Bengal tiger.’
Another person wrote: ‘They definitely don’t dare to bathe their dogs for fear of discolouration.’
The zoo said in a statement: ‘It was a native Chow Chow dyed into a “tiger dog!, not a tiger.’
But this is not the first time a zoo in China has dyed dogs to look like another animal.
Taizhou Zoo dyed two Chow Chow dogs black and white to make them look like panda bears in May 2024.
Chinese state media accused the zoo of trying to deceive visitors into thinking the animals were actual pandas.
Zoo officials told state media the Chow Chows – a fluffy dog breed originally from northern China – were painted to look like giant pandas but the zoo wasn’t trying to fool anyone.
They said the dogs are labelled as ‘panda dogs’, making it clear they are not real panda bears.
In 2023, Hangzhou Zoo, in the Chinese province of Zhejiang, had to issue a statement insisting its sun bears were not humans in costume.
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