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The tears of a child over her lost pet are hard to look at.

But the story is more gutwrenching as it becomes clear this girl found her pet roasted and ready for sale at a local meat vendor.

The photographs showing the young girl crying have gone viral on Vietnamese social media, after she allegedly spotted her family's dog on sale at a local meat vendor after it had gone missing for several days.

(Image: CEN)

The unnamed girl, thought to be about five years old and from a village in northern Vietnam, spotted the dog for sale, after it had been slaughtered, roasted, and placed in a flat basket.

Her tragic response has brought back long-running discussion on social media in Vietnam, as well as in neighbouring China, about the ethics of eating dogs.

Stories about strays or other dogs taken from the street and sold in unhygienic conditions to the public are common with a growing number of clashes between people looking for dogs to cook and sell ending up in clashes with dog owners.

(Image: CEN)

Eating dog meat is not illegal in China, and there is an annual dog eating festival in the Chinese city of Yulin, with an estimated 10,000 dogs slaughtered at the summer solstice event every year.

In response to international outrage China said it was clamping down on the illegal street dog meat sellers, forcing it instead into authorised premises.

They want the dogs to come from authorised traders and not be harvested off the street where they may have diseases that could pose a risk to human health and subsequently be butchered in unhygienic conditions.

(Image: CEN)

Only recently a raid happened in the Shunyi District of China’s capital Beijing where customers were given the chance to pick their dog from a cage before it was slaughtered and screened in front of them.