Simon Cowell has called for the Yulin Dog Meat Festival to be stopped.

The 'X Factor' judge is disgusted by the annual event, which took place on Monday (22.06.15) and saw around 10,000 canines and cats killed to be eaten as a delicacy in China.

Dog lover Cowell - who owns two Yorkshire terriers called Squiddly and Diddly - took to his Twitter account to urge his 12 million followers to ''help stop this disgraceful animal torture and cruelty'' and to sign a petition created by Humane Society International (HSI) calling for the festival to be banned.

He posted a series of tweets which read: ''I can barely bring myself to talk about the horrific Yulin Dog and Cat Meat festival because it makes me so sick ... But unless we all do something about this, it won't stop. We have to act now to stop these barbaric & disgusting events FOREVER ... Please, please sign to help stop this disgraceful animal torture and cruelty. Thank you (sic)''

HSl's petition has so far attracted 490,083 signatures, including an extra 9,000 around the time of Cowell's tweets.

Last week, Ricky Gervais publicly called for people to sign the petition as a backer of HSI's work and he has praised Cowell for getting involved in the animal welfare campaign.

The comedian - who has been urging his fans to help shut down the entire dog meat trade in China - tweeted: ''Simon Cowell just earned himself a follow.''

Other celebrities who have spoken out against the dog meat trade include Leona Lewis and Miley Cyrus.