Aloka, widely known as Aloka the Peace Dog, is a male rescue dog who rose to international prominence accompanying a group of Buddhist monks on a Walk for Peace across the United States in 2025 and 2026. Believed to be an Indian pariah dog, Aloka was originally a stray when he encountered a group of Vietnamese-American Buddhist monks in 2022, participating in a 112-day peace pilgrimage across India. According to the monks, Aloka began following them during their walk and despite suffering several hardships -- including being struck by a car and falling seriously ill -- he repeatedly rejoined the procession. The monks adopted him and brought him back to the United States. Aloka's wider prominence grew when he joined an initiative called the "Walk for Peace." The event began on October 26, 2025, when approximately 19 Buddhist monks from the Huong Dao Vipassana Bhavana Center in Fort Worth, Texas, set out on a roughly 2,300-mile walk to Washington, D.C. The monks walked barefoot through 10 states over 108 days, advocating for peace, loving-kindness, and compassion, and calling on Congress to recognize Vesak -- the Buddha's birthday -- as a United States federal holiday. Aloka walked alongside them for much of the journey, occasionally riding in a support vehicle. He has a distinctive heart-shaped marking on his forehead and, at the height of the walk, had accumulated more than 1.5 million followers across his social media accounts.
