The Dog-Cat Meat Industry
THE DOG MEAT INDUSTRY
I think this is rather important, so I hope you actually take your time to read this.
Sorry about the pictures, but to get a whole idea of this I deem them necessary.
Would you like to buy your meat like this? "At least I know where it came from."
Click to viewA poor little husky in South Korea. Don't worry, no explicit content, just a very cute but poor dog. The person who filmed the dog gave it some food and water.
It makes my heart ache though to think that this husky is still so friendly and happy at human contact despite everything.
Once I worked on aproject regarding the fur industry, or also commonly known as animal cruelty, in the world. I was against it before then and after it, and has not even once so far found a legitimate reason to keep it up.
Today though I saw and read about the dog (and cat) meat industry in South Korea, although it also exist in China and the Filippines. I've known about it since before but today I read about it properly and as usual, what you find out is horrible. 2 million dogs every year are killed for meat in South Korea only. But they aren't "just killed", no that's not the problem. No, they live under terrible conditions, are given food just to barely survive and are then tortured in different ways before being slaughtered in front of the other dogs, waiting in agony at their turn. The really strange thing about this is that there is a reason for this. You see, the butchers says that if the dog is feeling a huge fear the meat will become better and more tender. For another thing the dogs are beaten bad so that the blood vessels break and the meat becomes red. The korean people are told the reason to eat dog meat is that it will make you strong, it's healthy and will improve the sexual drive for men. It's also considered to help against the heat in summer, in China it's conversely against the cold of the winter. This is unfortunately utter and complete bullshit. Dog meat doesn't make you healthier, in fact it would rather make you less healthy. Other's says it's their culture, but that's also stretching it. The way dog meat is made differs completely from other Korean food and was eaten by the poor back in the day when they didn't have anything else. Apparently mostly rich folk and middleclass men eat it and they will keep spreading good words about the industry to Korea so they can keep up this cruel "culture".
One good thing though is that the dog market slowly is seen more clearly for what it actually is by the people of South Korea, and a lot of people are against it. There's people constantly working on preventing it and it seems hope exist for them. I truly admire those working for that. Thank you.
Rescued "meat"-cats from China and the dog Tiffany that managed to flee an got rescued after being abused at a farm.
I have friends from South Korea so I'm not bashing on them in any way, only at the people accepting this. I hate when people say "We just have to accept that things are the way they are. And doesn't americans eat pigs, cows and chickens? Doesn't they count then? We call that hypocracy." I don't understand how people can let something bad happen just because other bad things happen too. That's just ridiculous! I'll keep think and say that the mink farms here in Sweden are a bad thing and should be shut down. I've helped them and put my vote to that. This spring the question to close down the fur farms will be brought up once again and hopefully the government will listen to the people this time, and close it forever. But just because we want the fur farms to be shut down doesn't mean we don't care about other animals an their rights. You just have to start or help somewhere. To me that's better than doing nothing.
As a dog owner, ex cat-owner and animal lover I will always be against animal cruelty. I will say this, yes, I do like meat. But I don't want the animal to live a degrading life like this. Even they have their rights. I also think it would be better to eat less meat, since this industry also has a bad effect on the environment. It would mean a lot just to not eat meat once a week. Even such a small thing make a differance! So don't think only vegetarians can help, I know it's hard for some to quit meat. I probably wouldn't be able too, but I still want a better life for our animal friends. I don't want to preach, and I don't consider myself doing so by telling you all this. Thank you. :) ♥
These to people here; Richard Wesley and Sue Cho, said some pretty good things regarding this subject. Please feel free to read them. ♥
http://www.koreananimals.org/info/wesley1.htm
http://www.koreananimals.org/info/cho1.htm
Protesting against the dog meat trade in South Korea.
Pictures from these sites:
http://www.life.com/image/71485915
http://www.animalliberationfront.com/ALFront/Actions-China/CatProtectionDec08.htm
http://msleetobe.wordpress.com/page/13/
http://neoncobra.blogspot.com/2009/07/dog-markets-in-asia.html