What happened
His story
Who he was
Chutou — 锄头, literally “Hoe” — was a merle Border Collie (陨石边境牧羊犬), bought as a three-month-old puppy for a little over 2,000 RMB on a street in Shangqiu, Henan, in 2017. His owner, travel influencer Guo (郭先生) — known online as 瘦猴, “Skinny Monkey” — named him 锄头 because as a pup he followed Guo's father out to the fields, never far from the farm work.
One man, one dog
Over nearly nine years, Chutou became famous — more than a million fans, especially on Douyin — as one half of a “one man and one dog” travel duo. Guo and Chutou self-drove across Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Tibet, Qinghai and Yunnan, and walked the sacred kora around Mount Kailash (冈仁波齐) together — twice. Everyone said the same thing about him: gentle, friendly, never aggressive, and never more than a few steps from Guo.
What happened
In May 2026, Guo was abroad on a self-driving trip through Turkey, and Chutou — by then eight or nine years old — stayed with Guo's parents in Xiguo Village, Liuhe Town, Ningling County, as he always did, dozing near the family's three-wheeler while Guo's father worked the fields. There, he was stolen. He was sold to a restaurant, and later confirmed dead — slaughtered to be eaten.
“The dog is dead, so stop making a fuss. I did not break the law.” — reportedly said to Chutou's family
The fight for justice
Police opened a case. Guo has refused any private settlement and is pushing for criminal charges, submitting proof of Chutou's real worth — a famous companion with a fanbase and genuine commercial value — because in China theft must clear a value threshold to be prosecuted as a crime. His story spread fast, reigniting anger over pet theft, the dog-meat trade, and the gaps in China's animal-protection laws. To the people who followed him for nine years, Chutou was never property. He was family.