There’s a reason why dogs are called “Man’s best friend.”

The most recent example is an extraordinary former stray dog named Arthur, who latched onto an extreme sports team during the Adventure Racing World Championship in the Amazon rainforest.

According to the Daily Mail, Mikael Lindnord of Team Peak Performance spotted Arthur after he and his team had stopped to have a meal, and they fed the scruffy pooch a meatball.

Lindnord thought that was the end of their time with the pup, and promptly refocused the team’s goal of hiking, biking and kayaking the rest of their way through the world championship, which was held in Ecuador over a number of days.

While the Swedish team focused on traversing the race that spanned across the Andes, the Pacific and the Amazon rainforest, Arthur decided that he would stick with the guys who gave him a meatball.

Arthur followed the four-man team through the final two stages of the 430-mile race. When the men kayaked down rivers, Arthur desperately swam alongside until the team put him in the boat. When they hiked up hills and through knee-deep mud, Arthur was there, steadfast and determined to complete the journey with his new friends.

Even when the team tried to get rid of Arthur for his own safety, he refused to leave their side.

“At one stage we had to take a break and the dog was totally wrecked,” Linfnord told Swedish news site Aftonbladet. “We opened two cans of food and let him eat, because he could find no food at all in the jungle.”

After the race, the team couldn’t bring themselves to leave Arthur behind, so Lindnord filed an application with Sweden’s Board of Agriculture to adopt Arthur and bring him “home.”

“I almost cried in front of the computer, when receiving the decision from Jordbruksverket (Board of Agriculture) in Sweden!' Lindnord said. “I came to Ecuador to win the World Championship. Instead, I got a new friend.”