Unalloyed Loyalty

He's sweet enough in appearance and obvious willingness to be a trusting and trustful companion to melt the heart of the most hardened.  A tiny terrier who by an accident of fate, met up with a group of Chinese cyclists celebrating their graduation with an adventurous bicycle trip of substantial proportions.  The tiny stray was hungry when it came across the students on Highway G318 in the Qinghai Tibet Plateau, in Sichuan Province.


One of the bicyclists threw a chicken drumstick to the little dog.  After that the little dog's loyalty was assured.  He came across and adopted the cyclists on the fifth day of their 1,600-kilometre expedition.  Remaining with them for the 20 days it took to complete their bicycle venture.  Xiao Sa, as the little dog was named by the young men, managed, along with the cyclists, to clamber over 12 mountains in excess of 13,000 feet.

Despite inclement weather and storms, along with physical exhaustion, as one cyclist after another dropped out of the group of friends, 22-year-old Xiao Yong described an ongoing scenario where the little dog's determination and devotion ensured that they kept going.  "There was one day when we climbed the 14,700-foot-tall peak of Anjiala mountain", he said.

"We did over 40 miles uphill and at the end I had to get off my bike and push.  The dog ran ahead of me and stopped at a crossroads. She waited for a while, but got bored because I took so long, so ran back, put her paws on my calves, and started licking me."

The little terrier, he said garnered sufficient inner resources to run with the cyclists for their average of 50 to 65 kilometres each day.  Occasionally, Xiao Yong would pick little Xiao Sa up to carry him on the back of his bike in a box.  He slept on their raincoats, and shared their rations of custard tarts, boiled eggs and sausages.

"Once, a large dog started chasing us along a series of dark tunnels and his barking drew a whole pack of others.  I put Xiao Sa on my bike and started peddling desperately.  One of my bags was ripped, but otherwise we got away."

Unsurprisingly the saga of the long and arduous trip shared by the little dog, whose name means "Little Sa", captured the imagination of the Chinese public.  And its reward was expressed not only in its newfound celebrity as a sustained and energetic little athlete, but as the companion of the young man who has since adopted him.

Xiao Yong, meet Xiao Sa.