Unaware of owner’s death, dog waits at Wuhan hospital for three months

The seven-year-old has been spotted sitting outside the lobby of the hospital for three months even though his owner died of Covid-19 just five days after being admitted in February.

Netizens are being reminded of Hachikō — a Japanese dog who continued to wait for nine years for its owner unaware of the latter’s death — after pictures of a mongrel ‘Xiao Bao’ waiting at a Wuhan hospital for his master went viral on social media.

The seven-year-old has been spotted sitting outside the lobby of the hospital for three months even though his owner died of Covid-19 just five days after being admitted in February. Xiao Bao, unaware of the circumstances, has stayed put in the hospital waiting for his owner.

The staff at Wuhan Taikang Hospital in Central China’s Hubei Province fed the animal and took care of it all these months. The dog has been recently shifted to a dog shelter, the DailyMail reported.

While initially the dog was fed by the hospital staff, a shopkeeper named Wu Cuifen later started looking after him once the lockdown was lifted. “I first noticed the little dog when I returned to work in the middle of April. I called him ‘Xiao Bao’. That’s the name I gave him,” The Metro reported.

According to the news website, the dog refused to leave the hospital premises even when he was left at another location. He would eventually return to the hospital. However, when the hospital staff started receiving complaints about Boa, they finally contacted Wuhan Small Animal Protection Association, where he was treated and sterilised.

Several pictures of the animal were shared on social media, leaving netizens emotional.