Man Dragging Dog Behind Motorcycle in China: Real or Hoax?

A disturbing photo is circulating online which shows a man dragging a helpless dog behind a motorcycle, while he coldly stares directly at the camera. Is this photo real or a hoax?

The Story
The photo appears to be real real and is accompanied by a story reported by China Daily in February 2010. The story reports that the photo was uploaded by one of its readers who saw the man dragging the dog along the highway in Fuzhou, which is the capital of the Fujian Province in China. The user’s description of the scene was reported as follows:

“I rolled down my car window and asked the man to stop. However, the man speeded up and drove away. The dog couldn’t bark due to the chains around its neck, and its four legs were bleeding. The speed of the motorbike was about 50 km per hour at the time.”

If you look closely at the front tire of the image of the man on the motorcycle (see below for full image), you can easily see that his tires are in fact moving. For this reason, it doesn’t appear to be a staged or fake scene.

The Shared Images on Facebook
There are actually two images shared on Facebook. The ubiquitous image of the man on the motorcycle, and another image of an injured German Shepherd puppy in a cage. The caption reads:

This man deserves to suffer!
1 Like = 1 Punch
1 Share = 1 Kick + Punch

There is also a link to the website lolsomuch.com, which appears to have no relation to this photo at all. It’s this author’s opinion that the caption is designed to piggyback traffic to their website on the heels of outrage sparked by the photo. To share an outrageous photo and immediately tell people to like or share is more indicative of someone attempting to generate traffic based on outrage, especially with an unrelated link included.

The Second Photo
The bottom of the two images shared on Facebook is that of a German Shepherd puppy with severe leg injuries. Those circulating the image would have us believe that this is the dog being dragged behind the motorcycle in the other photo. I could find no evidence that the bottom photo of the injured dog is in fact the animal in question. A reverse Google image search shows no matches, while TinEye has three results from http://liaoning.nen.com.cn, but the pages on which those images appear no longer contain the image of the injured dog.

There were no reports that the man or dog had been found, so a follow-up picture such as this appears dubious. Further, if we compare a closeup of the dog being dragged with the injured dog in the shared photo (below), you can see that the injured dog has a fully-black snout, while the dog being dragged has lighter fur surrounding the nose. It’s almost certainly not the same dog.

 

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