BEIJING - Elephants may be renowned for not forgetting but canines also have an uncanny ability to remember.

Seven years after going missing, a dog managed to recognize the voice of its owner.

Chen Yiyang, a 21-year-old Beijing resident, was dramatically reunited recently with his lost pet.

"I was riding a motorbike to my parents' home after work on Feb 6 and I saw a dog crouching on the roadside," Chen said.

"The dog looked like the one I had that went missing seven years ago. I stopped, took off my helmet, whistled and called out the name. She stood still and looked at me for three seconds and then rushed crazily toward me."

The reunion occurred, fittingly, on Lantern Festival, an occasion for family reunions.

Chen got Benben in junior middle school in 2002, when she was just a month old. He was visiting a friend. "I saw her at my friend's home, so I asked if I could have her."

Benben went missing in 2005 when Chen took her out for a walk in a nearby park. Benben, without a leash, went into the bushes and seemed to vanish into thin air.

"I was distracted, talking to someone and didn't notice she was gone," Chen said. "Even if she had heard me whistling and calling her name, the bushes might have blocked her from coming back."

Chen searched around the park for a week before giving up.

Beijing resident Chen Yiyang cannot control his tears of joy when he meets his long-lost pet dog Benben at a roadside in the city on Feb 6. Chen Yiyang / for China Daily