This is a nightmare moment for any dog owner: recognising their missing pets served in a roast shop.

And it just happened to a five-year-old from northern Vietnam.

A picture of a little girl crying by a dog she believed to be her pet has quickly gone viral on the internet, according to People's Daily Online.

The unidentified girl reportedly lives in the countryside of north Vietnam. She had raised a dog 'Flower' for three years and was deeply saddened when her beloved pet went missing mysteriously.

Devastated: The little girl, who is believed to be living in northern Vietnam, finds her beloved pet 'Flower' already cooked outside a dog meat stall. She has searched for the dog for a few days after it went missing mysteriously

She had spent great effort searching for 'Flower', but to no avail.

A few days later, when the child passed by a local dog meat stall, she instantly recognised a dog lying on the street - and already cooked.

'That's Flower,' cried the girl while rushing over to the dog.

The picture broke the heart of hundreds of thousands on the internet.

Many agreed that the tragedy is too much for a five-year-old to take and have appealed for a ban on the consumption of dog meat.

Dog meat is treated as a delicacy in several Asian countries, including Korea, Vietnam and China.

A documentary made by Channel 4 last autumn revealed that seven tonnes of live dogs are shipped to the nation's capital Hanoi every day with one slaughter house owner saying he killed up to 30 dogs a day.