Beijing: Two young children who were locked up in a kennel during the day by their grandfather with 50 dogs and made to eat dog food have been rescued in China's eastern Anhui province.
A six-year-old boy and a four-year-old girl were rescued by a local community organisation after being alerted by concerned neighbours.
The children stayed in a large dog kennel with 50 dogs during the day, eating dog food and sometimes leftover food from a local market and drinking from a nearby river. They slept in a broken van at night, state-run China Radio International (CRI) reported.
A local family has volunteered to take care of the children.
The dog kennel has been taken away by the local authorities, Beijing Times reported.
Their grandfather, Yu Congqiu, said that he locked his grandchildren with the dogs due to safety concerns.
He said he earned a measly wage by running his unauthorised dog kennel. It was not enough to raise the two grandchildren. The mother of the two had left the family. This had prompted the father to send his children away.
A local community organisation for children in Nanjing helped to find a foster family for the children.
The organisation also contacted local dog lovers to purchase the dogs from the kennel, raising 50,000 yuan (USD 8,052) for the grandfather.
Volunteers are helping the illiterate father and grandfather to fill in the necessary forms to return to their hometown in Anhui Province, where they would receive government support, the report said.