A six-year-old boy and a four-year-old girl from Anhui province who were kept in a dog kennel for most of the day by their grandfather have been rescued by a local community organization after being alerted by concerned neighbors.

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.

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.

Their grandfather, Yu Congqiu, explained that he locked his grandchildren with the dogs due to safety concerns.

The grandfather earned a measly wage by running his unauthorized 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 organization for children in Nanjing helped to find a foster family for the children. The organization also contacted local dog lovers to purchase the dogs from the kennel, raising 50, 000 yuan 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 aid.

The undated photo shows the children now living with a foster family. [Photo: chinanews.com]