South Korea's former president Park Geun-hye's pet dogs are seen in this handout picture provided by the Presidential Blue House and released by News1 on December 24, 2015. PHOTO: REUTERS
The dogs are Jindos, a Korean breed of hunting dog known for their loyalty.
Park left the Blue House presidential complex on Sunday, two days after the Constitutional Court removed her from office over a corruption scandal involving big business and financial favours.
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She returned to her private home in the upmarket Gangnam district of the capital, Seoul.
Some neighbours there had given Park a pair of Jindos in early 2013, when she left for the Blue House. The pair had seven puppies in January this year.
The Busan Korea Alliance for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said on its Twitter account it had filed a complaint against Park on a charge of animal abandonment.
The Blue House said Park had left the dogs partly because it would not be good for the puppies to be uprooted from their home and denied they had been abandoned.
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"She told Blue House staff to take good care of the dogs and to find good foster homes for the puppies if necessary," said a Blue House spokesman, Kim Dong-jo.
Another animal rights group, Coexistence of Animal Rights on Earth, said it was willing to care for the animals and find them homes.
"We want to help these dogs so that they won't be adopted thoughtlessly or end up in dog shelters,” the group said in a statement.
The Jindos are native to Jindo Island off the south-west coast of the Korean peninsula.
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