A pet owner and his dogs chased out a cheeky wild monitor lizard that invaded a Buddhist shrine while he was praying in Thailand.

Salakchai Mankong was inside the building when they spotted the juvenile lizard scrambling across the tiled floor in Nakhon Pathom province on May 9.

The local was startled and called the workers for help before they chased the creature out using a pole. His dogs, and the pooches living in the temple, joined in and barked on the lizard to scare it away.

Footage shows the locals pushing the monitor lizard with a stick as dogs surrounded it.

Local Salakchai said: ‘It was so brave for coming inside the temple with so many dogs around.’

The lizard was taken out of the compound and released on a nearby canal.

Monitor lizards are a common sight across Thailand including in the capital city Bangkok where they lived on canals and rivers. These reptiles are a protected species in the country so their population thrived. They were usually shy among humans but have fangs that could pierce through the skin and cause injuries.