This is the heart-melting moment a stray pup begs a woman to adopt it alongside its teddy bear, refusing to leave its snuggle buddy behind.

Stray Pup Begs To Be Adopted With Its Stuffed Toy 1 from News X on Vimeo.

The woman – named Ms Zhang in local media – came across the sickly pup on a river bank in Jining, in eastern China’s Shandong Province.

Seeing it wandering around in the rain with dirt and mud all over its white coat Ms Zhang decided to bring it back home with her.

She found it wearing a beautiful collar with a small yellow wreath – likely given to its by its previous owner – but with injuries so bad it had apparently been abandoned for good.

Footage filmed by Ms Zhang shows the pooch did not even have a place to hide from the rain.

It just kept guarding a teddy bear and cuddling with it.

She patiently coaxed the dog until it finally began following her to her car.

But while on the road, the pup turned around every step of the way – seemingly unwilling to leave – and kept looking back.

It put its paws on her leg while whimpering until she finally decided to follow where it was leading her.

As they returned to where she found it, she realised that the dog was begging to take its teddy bear home with them.

The pup even tried hard to lick the teddy bear’s face clean, as if it was afraid that Ms Zhang would think it was too dirty to bring along.

Ms Zhang said: “We found it by the river, and before we brought it home, it kept begging to take the teddy bear along, and finally we took them home together for temporary adoption.”

She brought the two home, washed them clean and tucked them away on a beanbag sofa.

Ms Zhang took it to a vet the next day and found that it had many wounds and a skin infection.

It is unclear how long the puppy had been a stray.

Ms Zhang said: “The dog is sick now, and we are currently treating it.

“But because we already have three dogs in our family, if we can’t keep it, we will consider finding it a proper home after it has healed.”

(T4/ends)