A depressed stray dog paralysed in its hind legs has been given a new lease of life and is super happy after a kind adventurer travelling around the country by bike took pity on it and carried it with him.

The traveller identified only as Lao Wang first met the dog that had been crippled after it was hit by a car that then drove off on 27th April 2019.

He took a short video of the poor animal which was also unable to wag its tail because of its disability as it dragged its legs to the ground towards him.

He wrote on social media: “This is the stray dog I ​​encountered on the side of the national highway that was paralyzed by the car in the back! Feeding it with ham and pie, so pitiful and distressed! I really want to take it with me.” (https://bit.ly/2PwNcF5)

He said he had then climbed on his bike and left the dog, but after 30 kilometres he had felt so guilty, he had turned back to collect it.

In a short video in which the dog welcomes him back he wrote: “The paralysed stray dog ​​encountered by the national highway, regretted not taking it away, returned 30 kilometers and found it again. This time, I will take you along.” (https://bit.ly/3dZVqPu)

He said that when he saw it dragging its hind legs down the street he had just started on his epic nine-month, 10,000-kilometre bicycle trip around China, and he decided he could not simply abandon it.

So instead he took it with him and had even modified his bike so that the dog could travel in comfort, and then eventually took it home with him almost a year later to Datong, which is a prefecture-level city in northern Shanxi Province in China.

The dog, who has been nicknamed “bitter melon”, had looked completely depressed before getting the wheelchair, but now smiles all the time.

He said that he had taken pity on the dog, and had hoped it would get better, but successive visits to the vets had done nothing to improve the situation, and seeing how unhappy the animal was, he had decided to build it the wheelchair on his return home.

He said: “Before I never saw it smile, but now you only need to look at the smile to see how happy it is.”

The man has shared images of himself and his new best friend on his tick-tock account called “Lao Wang and bitter melon”.

Speaking about the reason why he decided to call the dog bit a lemon, he wrote: “I think it is very bitter, but I hope it will be as sweet as a melon in the future, so I will call it bitter melon.”