In what is apparently a surprisingly common mistake to make, a Yunnan family bought a “puppy” two years ago only to later discover, much to their surprise, that it was in fact a black bear.

The family purchased the “pup” on the roadside while traveling in 2016. The man who sold them the animal claimed that it was a Tibetan mastiff. And so, that’s how they decided to raised it. Only thing was, the “dog” kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger…

“The bigger it got the more it started to look like a black bear,” the animal’s owner surnamed Su confessed before explaining why they were still so hesitant to call the authorities. “Although I’m a bit scared of black bears, after two years of raising it, I had really grown attached.”

However, when the animal failed to stop growing and started even showing off an ability to walk on two legs, the family had to finally face facts and call up animal control.

Workers at the Yunnan Wildlife Rescue Center arrived at the village outside of Kunming last week to take the animal away, making sure that the 200 kilogram Asiatic black bear was well sedated first.

While the family’s life may now feel more empty without their beloved bear around, at least their checkbook will be a bit more full. Su told reporters that her pet had been consuming a box of fruit and two buckets of noodles a day.

Back in March, police in another part of Yunnan province seized a black bear from a man who had adopted it three years before, apparently believing at the time that it was an abandoned puppy.

Not a dog.

Yet another Yunnan villager made this very same mistake back in 2015, with it taking him two years to finally realize that his two canines were actually ursines.

Not a dog either.

While, back in 2013, one Henan zoo tried, briefly, to pass off a Tibetan mastiff as an “African lion.”

Not a lion.

[Images via China News]

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