The starving, ailing dogs were found crammed in a 323 sq foot tiny home.

This week, Japanese animal rights activists and health officials rescued 164 emaciated dogs in one of the country’s worst cases of animal hoarding.

The animals were found crammed in a dingy, dilapidated 30 square-metre (323 sq foot) house in the city of Izumo in western Japan.

Kunihisa Sagami, the head of the animal rights group Dobutsu Kikin, said the team visited the home following complaints from neighbours.

Horrific conditions

Sagami said the team found the dogs huddled on shelves and under tables and chairs.

Footage captured by the group showed the malnourished animals with bones jutting from under their dirty coats climbing on to each other due to lack of space. Most of the dogs also had parasitic infections and other ailments after living in those horrific conditions.

“The entire floor was filled with dogs and all the floor space you could see was covered with faeces,” Sagami told Reuters.

The same property was reported to the authorities seven years ago over noise and bad smell, but the owner refused to cooperate when health officials arrived to investigate the complaint at that time.

However, this time, the family agreed to give up the dogs because the situation was beyond their control.

The group will now tend to the dogs and look for foster homes once the animals have received medical attention.

Animal hoarding on the rise

Cases of animal hoarding have been rising in the country. According to the environment ministry, in 2018, 120 cities reported a total of 2,064 complaints about animal hoarding.

Many of these complaints involved pet owners living in difficult conditions or isolation and unable to afford spaying and neutering the animals.

In one case reported earlier this year, animal welfare volunteers found 238 cats living in unsanitary conditions in a house in northern Japan. The cats were rescued and shifted to animal shelter homes.

• Read: Nearly 200 dogs rescued from tortuous South Korean dog meat farm

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