The world has fallen in love with the apparently heart-warming tale of a pack of dogs walking miles back to their homes after a video went viral earlier in March.

There’s just one rather large problem – the whole story is untrue.

The footage, which has rapidly done the rounds of social media in the past two weeks, shows seven dogs walking together along a dark highway in China.

The online narrative took off with speed – they were beloved pets who had been stolen by thieves tied to the dog meat trade. They had escaped and were on a long, co-ordinated journey home.

As the story, and the footage, spread social media users added details; the pack was protecting an injured German shepherd, a corgi was in charge, there was a sweet golden retriever.

The video racked up more than 90 million views on Chinese platforms alone. It also spread globally across TikTok, Instagram and X, aided by images generated by artificial intelligence, such as the one above.

There were AI-generated movie posters, a film trailer of the dogs’ thrilling escape, and images of them reuniting with overjoyed owners.

“Heartwarming tale of 7 dogs’ escape from captivity in China garners 230 million views,” wrote the South China Morning Post on March 23 in a story that re-used the AI image.

It said a “netizen surnamed Lu” had recorded the video of the seven dogs walking along a busy highway in Changchun, in Jilin province.

“They resemble a band of little brothers in distress, moving in unison – nothing like stray dogs,” Lu told mainland Chinese media outlet Dahe Daily, the SCMP wrote.

It said Lu had tried to guide the dogs to safety but they had ignored him.

A volunteer for a local animal protection group said the pack had been stolen by dog meat operators, and had escaped from a truck. They all came from the same village and usually roamed together, forming strong friendships.

Enter CNN and another Chinese media outlet, City Evening News, which reported all the dogs belonged to villagers who lived near the highway where they were filmed.

The dogs often wandered together, the villagers said. In this case, the German shepherd was in heat, which is why other dogs were drawn to it.

All had since returned home, with the shepherd now confined to a leash.

And that should be the end of that.

Except, as one Australian expert noted, the phenomenon illustrates not only the easy spread of misinformation, but also a human hunger for wholesome feel-good content.

TJ Thomson, associate professor of digital media at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, told CNN that such videos offered an escape while their popularity encouraged their creation for clicks and engagement.

“Folks are trying to capitalise on existing viral content or trends,” he said. “Attention is money online and on social media. So, the more attention you get, the more engagement you get.”

Thomson said animal videos tapped into our “childlike nature” and our desired to care for small creatures. Animals also allowed us to express universal themes such as community, belonging, and loneliness, he said.

Crucially, such wholesome content is a respite from endless headlines about wars and disasters. The rise and rise of animal characters such as Moo Deng, the baby pygmy hippo in Thailand, and – more recently – Punch the monkey are proof of our fascination.

Those two are real, and not AI. But Tama Leaver, professor of internet studies at Perth’s Curtin University, said the difference didn’t always matter.

“This sort of content can prove incredibly popular and can go viral. And so that does mean that it can be quite an effective way to build up an account’s numbers very quickly,” he told CNN.

It becomes problematic when viewers accept what they’re seeing without question – especially on more serious topics. Leaver said, for example, an “enormous amount” of fake footage was circulating from the Iran war that some people may accept as real.

“When we lower our expectations and admit that we may not care in one space, it does mean perhaps our critical skills won’t be as sharp in the other ones,” he said.