Labrador dog becomes surrogate mother to tiny tiger cubs

But an unlikely saviour came their way, in the form of a four-legged surrogate mother, a white labrador named Xiao Meng who has become a surrogate mother to the pair.

The cubs, born last week at Nanchang Zoo in China, were rejected by their mother due to her inexperience and their future looked uncertain.

But staff at the zoo were delighted when Xiao Meng, who recently gave birth to a puppy, looked after the cubs as if they were her own - feeding them and protectively keeping them warm.