A family in Yunan Province, China, recently had to give up the pet puppy they had bought two years ago after it grew into a 250lbs black bear.

Su Yun, who lives near the city of Kunming, bought the animal two years ago, while on vacation. At the time, she thought she had paid for a Tibetan Mastiff puppy, one of the most highly-regarded dog breeds in China, and didn’t much care that it was sold by a random man on the side of the road. The price was good and the puppy certainly looked like it was going to grow up to be an impressive specimen. Little did she know that the “puppy” would exceed all her expectations, at least in terms of size.

Photo: CGTN video screengrab

The woman recently told China News that she and her family were impressed by the puppy’s appetite from the very beginning, but the more he grew, the more he ate, and the more he ate, the less he looked like a dog.

“The more he grew, the more like a bear he looked,” Sun Yun said. “I am a little scared of bears.”

Photo: Tibetan Paradise/Wikimedia Commons

When her dog started walking on his hind legs, Su couldn’t ignore the obvious anymore – the Tibetan Mastiff she had bought had grown into an Asian Black Bear. But she had become attached to him, so she kept him as a pet, despite the struggle to keep up with the animal’s seemingly insatiable appetite. The bear would apparently eat a large box of fruits and two buckets of noodles every day.

Su Yun said that she would could have coped with the high costs of raising a bear, but she recently learned that keeping large wild animals as domesticated pets was illegal, so she notified the Yiliang County Forest Public Security Bureau about her unusual pet.

 

The bear was sedated and taken to the Yunnan Wildlife Rescue Center for observation. After an initial inspection, staff there concluded that the animal exhibited no scars or other signs of physical violence and was in good health.