Injured Zack – a nine-year-old Border Collie – was out walking with owner Yvonne Voice, of Henty Close, Bewbush, when he trapped his leg in a bike chain and was left badly injured and shivering in pain.

To see a video of Zack click the link above.

Mum-of-three Yvonne explained how she found her moaning mutt frozen stiff with his rear leg completely de-gloved by the rusty bike.

She said: "I work in a hospital as a phlebotanist and I've seen some pretty nasty things in my time, and I've no problem with it, but when it came to Zack I couldn't take it at all.

"I ran to my neighbour's house but all I could get out was 'bridge, Zack, hurt,' and she said that she couldn't understand what I was actually saying.

"In fact she had to drive me to the vets."

And her husband Richard Voice, 35, said that the wound inflicted by the sharp, rusty metal was horrific.

He said: "It had completely ripped all the fur out and it was actually bleeding underneath, we could see some of the bone under it.

"He was in a considerable amount of pain.

"There was no skin for the vet to sew together so he was going to have to have skin grafts."

But in the end the couple decided it was too cruel to leave bouncy boy Zack cooped up in a cage for 14 weeks waiting to see if the vet could graft enough skin to heal the wound and opted to have his leg removed.

Yvonne said: "We made the decision to have the leg taken off last Tuesday.

"It wasn't a decision we took lightly, it broke my heart to have to do it, even though now I know it was the right thing to do.

"They hoisted him up at about 7pm that night and he actually managed to walk a little while at the vets.

"Then he went back to bed and the next day he was up, wagging his bum on three legs, all pleased to see everyone and they said he could go home.

"I went to pick him up and he almost pulled me out of the vets."

And despite his shocking injuries, Zack doesn't seem to have lost any of his loving character.

Yvonne said: "He was still quite quiet that night but the next night I wondered what he was doing and he was playing with his ball.

"As long as he's got that ball he's happy, I mean we've been really, really lucky. "He tries to give his paw but he forgets which side he needs to balance and he goes splat, but he is learning.

"We've got another dog as well, he's a completely different type of dog and if the same thing had happened to him we'd have had to have him put down, he wouldn't have coped with it, it's basically the type of dog he is that's got him through this."

But it wasn't just a sunny disposition that saved Zack, Yvonne added: "The vet also said that if he hadn't been castrated, it would have castrated him straight away and he would have been dead.

"I can't thank the vet at Seers Croft enough, if it wasn't for them that dog would not be alive, it's as simple as that, they were absolutely wonderful."

Yvonne said that she hoped Zack's horror accident would give people paws for thought before dumping their waste.

She added: "To me it was an accident that just didn't need to happen. "If whoever dumped that bike had just thought about what they were doing, it might have never happened."

Leave your comments below