Shocking footage reveals horrors of South Korea's dog meat trade as 250 dogs saved from slaughter

• By Charlotte Cross: ITV News reporter

Kept in cramped, filthy cages through freezing cold weather, hundreds of dogs have been saved from certain death after charity workers rescued them from a meat farm in South Korea.

Horrifying footage taken by the rescue team and shown to ITV News reveals row upon row of small cages filled with waste being stored in flimsy metal sheds, in what workers called the "most deprived conditions" they had ever seen.

Some of the dogs, terrified, cower away from the camera, while others paw through the bars in desperation. Many have been so underfed they are almost skeletal.

If they had not been saved, the first time the dogs would have stepped outside their wire walls would have been to be taken to slaughter.

Despite their years of trauma, however, touching images show the dogs wagging their tails and cuddling up to their saviours as they are freed.

Wendy Higgins, director of international media for the Humane Society International (HSI) in the UK, was among the team of workers who helped rescue the neglected animals.

She told ITV News she had been "overwhelmed" by the suffering the dogs had been through.

The farm is the fifth such operation in South Korea shut down by the charity which is working with farmers in the country to try to bring the cruel trade to an end.

They help them find alternative work and take the animals to America and Canada to find loving families. The first 50 dogs arrived this week, while the remaining 200 will be transported in April, with a team of vets and animal carers looking after them in the meantime.

Ms Higgins said that in most countries where dog meat is commonly eaten, the animals are stolen or picked up from the streets - but South Korea is the only one where they are intensively farmed.

Thousands of farms are operating in the country, with the dogs almost always kept in extremely deprived conditions such as those shown in the pictures.

Electrocution is the most common method of slaughter, she added, and the killing is often carried out in full view of other dogs. Their slow, painful death can last anywhere between two and 20 minutes.

"In all cases the farmers we work with are eager to leave the dog meat trade, and have agreed to work in partnership with us to urge the South Korean government to assist us in ending this trade," Ms Higgins said.

"These initial farm closures demonstrate that there is a willingness within the industry to phase out this trade."

Around two million dogs are consumed by Korean people every year, many within the summer months as there is a belief dog meat helps to cool the blood.

But Ms Higgins said attitudes were changing, with opinion polls showing many of the country's 50m-strong population seldom eating dog meat.

HSI is now petitioning authorities across Asia to end dog farming and its cruel practices, and campaigning to raise public awareness not just about the trade, but about adopting the animals into the home.

"At present in South Korea there is insufficient widespread acceptance of dog adoption, particularly for large size dogs," Ms Higgins told ITV News.

"We hope to change public perceptions of former dog meat dogs, and show that all dogs – regardless of where they started life – can be loving members of our families.

"Most South Korean people will have never seen a dog meat farm and will be unaware of the levels of animal cruelty that underpin the dog meat trade. HSI plans to launch a public awareness campaign to dispel the widely held misconception that there is a difference between 'pet dogs' and 'meat dogs'.

"We will encourage South Koreans to embrace all dogs as worthy of companionship and protection."