Story By: Alex Cope, Sub Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Central European News

These shocking images show the emaciated dog rescuers have found tied up to a stair railing in its own excrement and the pooch is now recovering in the shelter which gave it away to its owner.

The dog, named Fiona, was found in a flat in the city of Wavre in the Walloon Brabant province of central Belgium weighing just 7 kilogrammes (15 lbs), one-third of its normal weight.

The pooch was rescued by the Sans Collier dog shelter who said she had been “deprived of food and tied to a stair railing for several weeks”. The dog was reportedly in the empty flat in its own excrement in a state of hunger and “an advanced state of dehydration”.

The dog’s owner, who has not been named in reports, reportedly told the rescuers that Fiona had stopped eating after “a fight with a dog” and that he had been planning to take the pooch to the vet.

The shelter reportedly plan to file a lawsuit and civil action against the owner who they had initially paired Fiona, 5, with. They said they had received a complaint from a local resident about the dog which allowed them to go and seize it.

Initially fearing for the dog’s life, Sans Collier have now told Newsflash: “Fiona is slowly recovering. Her vital prognosis is still going on, but her chances are increasing day by day. Our association are taking good care of her.”

The association will reportedly conduct an investigation to see how they can prevent a similar situation with another rescue dog occurring again.

They said on social media: “It’s difficult because this is a dog placed by us several years ago and whose inspection had been very positive at the time. So it’s a #failure for the shelter, even if human nature alone is responsible for the situation.

“In the last 10 years we can count the number of failures like this on our hands compared to moving over 12,000 successful animals to a new home.”

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