A dog who had her face partially ripped off by Chinese meat traders has received enough money from adoring Instagram fans to have life-changing facial reconstructive surgery.
Fans of the Belgian shepherd, called Angel, chipped in to raise £4,500 for the surgery that will hopefully give her a new lease of life.
Angel was rescued from the brink of death when activists managed to seize a truckload of dogs bound for a slaughterhouse in Changchun, China, back in 2015.
Her owner, 25-year-old Hollie Cornes, said that her rescuers attributed her 'horrific' facial injuries to the tools that dog catchers use to get hold of pets and drag them off.
She had surgery in Beijing before she was flown to the UK by Rushton Dog Rescue and adopted by Hollie, who says she immediately fell in love with the pup.
Despite learning to deal with the injuries, Angel has suffered with breathing issues and bleeding around her nose, so Hollie contacted specialist vets Fitzpatrick Referrals to see what they could do.
One Instagram fan out of 30,000 even paid £2,500 to fund a CT scan to get to the root of the issue.
Hollie, from Witney in Oxfordshire, said: "We raised the money really quickly, which I never expected.
"Without the fundraising and her support system it wouldn't have been an option - in total it added up to cost about £7,500 - which we never would have been able to afford.
"She's got so many people that love and care about her [on social media] - it was only because of that that I thought it would be possible to raise that amount of money.
"We were told her initial CT scan would be £2,500 and one lady on Instagram sent the money straight away - which was incredible.
"I personally think this surgery has been life-changing for her.
"I didn't want to put her through any more stress and surgery - none of this was for aesthetic reasons, I loved the way she looked before - it was purely based on her quality of life."
She continued: Hollie said: "From looking at pictures of her she's got half a nose, which I always assumed was the side that she could breathe through because aesthetically that looks like the normal side.
"They found that behind her nose was completely sealed over with scar tissue, so she wasn't breathing through that side of the nose at all, but a 2mm hole the other side.
"As soon as we found out she was breathing through that tiny hole - it [surgery] was a no brainer.
"Even if we can make that hole a little bigger so she can breathe easier it's going to improve her quality of her life."
After Hollie set up a GoFundMe page, it was only four days before the target was reached.
Hollie, a military dog handler, says that Angel is the 'sweetest dog that I've ever come across, and I come across different dogs every day.'
Featured Image Credit: Kennedy News and MediaTopics: Instagram, UK News, Animals, Dogs, China