There are many cultural practices today that society is in a sort of limbo about. These practices, although they may be considered cultural and sacred by some, are in reality extremely cruel and outdated to the rest of the outside world. Dog meat farms and the consumption of dog meat is a tradition in many countries, but the real problem arises with the incredibly inhumane ways that the dogs are treated before they are killed. The dogs are born into darkness, crammed into cages unable to move and buried in their own excrement. They live out the extent of their short lives with metal wire underfoot, many of them not even seeing the light of day or seeing or feeling grass or feeling the touch of a human hand or a kind word. The whines and barking coming from the farms can be heard from miles away, the dogs begging to be given a chance at life, a chance at survival. The dog meat trade needs to be banned because of the extreme animal cruelty surrounding it, because it is the cause of rapid spreading of rabies and other diseases, and because there is no oversight in the health aspect or government oversight. 

The countries mostly responsible for the mistreatment, abuse and slaughter of man’s best friend are South Korea, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, and more countries across all of Asia. In South Korea alone there are somewhere between 1.5 million and 2.5 million dogs eaten a year. The country even hosts a Yulin Dog meat festival annually. Although the trade has become less popular due to the younger generation and their adopting dogs more as pets instead of food, the reality of the trade is something that needs attention from the rest of the world. A restaurant in central Guangshou, China serves a lengthy list of dog meat specialties including dog soup, dog steak, dog tofu, and more. The locals and supporters of the trade claim that dog meat is good for health and metabolism and somehow helps with the summer heat by making the body produce more sweat. Cats as well as dogs are subject to this cruel tradition. The consumption of dog and cat is not the majority of the problem, it’s the treatment of the animals before slaughter. The dogs are bred and raised in crammed cages full of other dogs, feces, and diseases. Not only are living conditions unbearably terrible, there is a traditional belief that high amounts of adrenaline make for a more tender meat. So the slaughters are often not quick and painless, but are done by bludgeoning, hanging, or electrocution. These slaughters are often done in public, on streets and at festivals and markets, where pedestrians and shoppers see dog’s necks breaking and their helpless cries being ended by electrocution. The dogs are bred for the sole purpose of consumption, so many locals create this misled notion that they aren’t the same as domesticated dogs, which is by no means true. The farms are scattered throughout the country side, and bring in a revenue of over $200 million worth of US dollars. Dogs born into the trade are not the only one’s subject to this fate. Pets are stolen out of yards, while some people grow tired of their pets and let them loose in the streets where they are picked up by dog meat farmers. 

In the Philippines the trade is concentrated mostly in Baguio, and the northern Luzon Island. Dog meat farms aren’t as prevalent, but the same inhumane practices are done on stray dogs picked up off the side of the road. After being picked up they are shipped without food or water for long periods of time with rusty, steel cans forced over their mouths and their paws tied in limb breaking ways behind their backs. Many of these dogs have collars still on them, and were once people’s pets. Along the way, as many as 90% of the dogs may die. This is not a problem for the dog meat farmers, because the dogs are just as good to them alive as they are dead, and the dogs that survived, as well as the ones that are not are all processed together. After arriving at their destination, the dogs are clubbed to enhance the adrenaline factor, their throats are cut, their fur burned off and their bodies carelessly dismembered. 

Not only is the practice cruel and inhumane, but there are numerous health risk and no health codes surrounding dog meat and the process of acquiring it. Eating dog puts people at risk for deadly parasites like E. Coli and salmonella, with various other bacterial infections. Dog meat is known to spread rabies, which is a problem for countries that don’t have access to proper rabies controlling drugs. Rabies is transferred easily from dog to dog in the dog meat farm industry because of close quarters and lack of medical attention. Rabies is transferred during raising, slaughtering, and ultimately consumption of the dogs. The World Health Organization is promoting mass rabies vaccination for dogs, but this will not be possible without the eradication of consuming dog meat and dog meat farms. Often times when the dogs in dog meat farms are given medical attention, the quick and easy fix is to give them high doses of antibiotics as a means of preventing the disease from spreading. But when humans then eat a dog that has been given these high doses of antibiotics, the human body will then become immune to the effects of antibiotics which could lead to serious health issues. Recently there have been several outbreaks of cholera, which is a sometimes fatal bacterial disease affecting the small intestines, which are believed to be caused by the consumption of dog meat, and food prepared and served along side of it. It is obvious that dog meat festers many health risks and violations along with the intense cruelty and mistreatment. A source from the Humane Society International/UK said “There is no truth to the statement that eating dog meat is healthy, this is a complete fallacy. In fact, far from being a ‘superfood', there is evidence spanning decades of the significant human health risk posed by slaughtering and eating dogs, with warnings issued by the World Health Organization of links between the practice and outbreaks of rabies and cholera in other countries.” The claims that dog meat is good for you, has no scientific backbone. All the science proves is that dog meat is unhealthy and is not meant for human consumption.

The legality of dog meat farms and serving and consumption of dog meat is perhaps the only realistic way that progress can be made in stopping the field all together. The problem with this is that many countries have made the trade illegal in order to subdue the political outcries from the rest of the world about the cruelty and mistreatment, but then do nothing to reinforce the laws they put into place. In India for example, there are laws that make the practice illegal, but that does not stop the country from having 30,000 stray and stolen dogs sold in markets and then beaten to death with wood clubs in the streets. During the transport, the helpless dogs are packed into sacks, their mouth stitched closed or tied dangerously tight, and are smuggled into neighboring states. South Korea’s government, similarly, is extremely ambiguous on its stance concerning dog meat trade and the legality surrounding it. It is basically interpreted as there is no explicit law describing anything related to dog meat. There is not even recognition of dog meat being consumed at all or the health factors surrounding it. In 2007 came South Korea’s Animal Protection Amendment Act which outlined and banned the cruel handling and slaughtering of dogs involved in the trade, but with the act brought no change. There is nothing being done to enforce the law, and dog meat is still being seen on menus throughout the country. There are around 6,500 restaurants registered to serve dog meat soup, but an estimated over 20,000 restaurants are serving dog as well, showing us that most of the restaurants involved with the trade are not doing it legally. 

The Chinese government has indicated a willingness to take dog meat off of their menus, but this was only because of the Beijing Olympics and they knew the spotlight would be on them, and the cruelty of the trade exposed. Officials decided that it would be best to ban serving dog meat temporarily in restaurants during the Olympics, perhaps because they knew the response that seeing “dog” on a menu would not be a happy one from tourists. There is a legislation processing slowly through the Chinese government that proposes the ban of serving dog and cat, but it could take up to a decade to pass because of lack of push from the citizens and the rest of the world. It is obvious to see that the Chinese government knows that to people outside of their country, this inhumane practice would not be accepted. This is an indication that they know that something should be done to stop the trade, but something permanent will probably be years if not decades away. This also goes to show that although dog meat generates a substantial amount of revenue, it is not completely essential to the Chinese economy. Especially with the younger generation not having interest in the trade, the trade might as well be stopped now. 

North Korea is not a country that the rest of the world knows much about, other then the dictatorship it is under is cruel and unforgiving, so there’s no surprise that they are also involved with eating dog. “Dangogi” is the name for the sweet meat in Korean, and is known for having more vitamins than other meats and medical benefits for the stomach and intestines. Again, these statements that dog has more health benefits then other meat has absolutely no science behind it. Dog meat is also being praised as the saving grace to the starving masses of the country. Famine has been a cruel reality of North Korea due to floods and drought’s and economic management failing. The countries controlled media has condoned the use of dog meat and the meat has been featured on various cooking shows, and a dog meat restaurant has recently opened in the capital. Across the border in South Korea is one of the countries most responsible for the abuse and consumption of dog. South Korea holds a Bok Nal Days festival where millions of dogs are slaughtered and made into soup that “cools the body”, but because their notoriously communist neighbors have condoned dog meat as a superfood a change for South Korea might be in the near future. 

In America, billions of animals are killed each year for food. Animals such as cows, pigs, chickens, lambs, etc. are born on farms for the sole purpose to be raised and then killed for food, just like the dogs in dog meat farms. So what gives people the right to protest eating dog and label it as cruel and unusual, while they support a similar system daily. Perhaps it’s because to many people and cultures, dogs are considered to be more personal then farm animals and are often kept as pets, or maybe it’s because people think dogs have a higher intelligence or awareness. Many justify the trade by saying that there are too many stray dogs and it is an easy solution to the lack of access to food, specifically meat. Having stray dogs running around spreading diseases and the lack of food can easily be solved by just eating the dogs, right? The solution is not that simple. These diseases that feral dogs carry will spread to humans during consumption, causing more problems then they started with. The consumption alone is not the ultimate problem, it is the treatment of the dogs and the pain and suffering they endure. There are more and more health regulations and animal treatment laws being implement and considered everyday in the US. Consumers are becoming more and more aware of what they eat and where they come from with every passing day because people are realizing that where your food comes from, affects you and how you feel and how much it can affect your body. Eating meat is not something that should be stopped all together, there is a circle of life and the food chain which is ever right and just because that is how the world was created. But there is also a very sensitive scale that can be tipped when those at the top of the food chain abuse their powers. And that’s what has begun to happen with dog meat farms. Each person has a right to eat whatever they want, it is a right that we are all born with. But do we have a right to torture other living things to satisfy ourselves? Is it not enough so just consume the animal? And who are humans to deprive another living thing of the joys of life, but to instead keep it in a metal box secluded from the rest of the world. Humans have come so far and most have grown to understand the value of a life, so why is it that such extreme cruelty is still happening under our very noses? 

There is, and always will be, a fine line between the cultural aspect of dog meat farming, and outsider’s view on the topic. Although there are points that are valid and can in some way condone and validate the consumption of dog, they by no means negate the reality of the cruelty and mistreatment that the trade is involved in. The treatment that the dogs endure is nothing short of primal and inhumane. In many countries dogs have extremely important roles. They fight along side the men and women in the armed forces, they can sense when someone needs immediate medical attention and serve as medical service dogs, they can give sight and confidence to a blind person, and they can use their amazing sense of loyalty to help police officers do their job and save and protect thousands of people everyday. Dogs have proven their worth, intelligence, and overwhelming loyalty. I find it quite difficult to imagine a world where dogs are not integrated into human existence. As I stated earlier, the implementation of laws banning the trade will most likely not be sufficient enough to stop such a deep rooted tradition because the government has no way of enforcing it. The only way that the elimination of torturing and eating of dog is truly possible is through the implementation of laws that make dog meat farms and everything surrounding the trade illegal, but only along side the support and funds given to the farmers breeding, torturing, killing and selling the dogs so they are able to land on their feet and start another business. Not only do laws need to be put into place, but they need to be heavily reinforced by the government along side with the support from outside organizations and countries that will help these farmers begin other businesses in different fields, like agriculture or retail stores for example. It is almost impossible to ask these farmers who have relied on the trade for so long to just abandon it altogether and leave them without any income. This will inevitably lead to the continuing of the trade, just in secret hidden from the government. It is vital that these farmers have another path laid out in front of them so the future does not seem so meek and so they do not continue the trade in secret. I predict that many farmers will welcome the assistance getting out of the trade, because they face opposition from outsiders and activist frequently and are only staying part of the trade because they have nothing else to do. Dogs have earned themselves a reputation of being affectionately called man’s best friend, and don’t deserve the cruel treatment they receive. With the activists and awareness of the subject and the rising of the millennia’s in the countries involved in the trade beginning to see dogs as more of pets then food, I believe that there should be enough support to have dog meat banned as well as give financial and physical support to the dog meat farmers to start in a new, and cruelty free career.
