Nearly 1,000 dogs were spared from slaughter in southwest China as animal-rights activists intercepted trucks loaded with dogs and negotiated their purchase, officials said Monday.

An Internet user known as "Mosquito" initiated the rescue via the Twitter-like microblogging site Weibo after learning the dogs would be transported out of the city of Zigong in Sichuan province and taken to slaughterhouses in Guangxi region to be processed for meat.