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  Channel NewsAsia 28 Jan 06
Friend or food? Year of the Dog brings mixed fortunes for canines in China
Story by Lucas van Grinsven

HONG KONG - The Chinese Year of the Dog dawns on Sunday, but it brings mixed fortunes for man's best friend in a culture where people increasingly keep canines as pets while others condemn them to the cooking pot.

Once banned as a bourgeois luxury, pet ownership is becoming big business in China and, with one in every nine Chinese now owning a dog, they are beginning to enjoy the status pampered pooches have in some other parts of Asia. Owners from Taipei to Tokyo spend thousands of dollars on their furry friends at grooming parlours which offer pedicures, acupuncture and massages along with a more usual coat trim. Dogs there even have their own cafes, funeral homes and schools.

But they remain the lucky ones.

Canines are still commonly eaten as a delicacy in China and Chinese communities around Asia. Others are skinned alive for their fur to make trimming for clothing and fashion accessories. Up to 10 million dogs are slaughtered every year in China, many killed slowly and cruelly to supposedly enhance the meat's flavour, according to Jill Robinson, founder and CEO of the Hong Kong-based Animals Asia Foundation.

"People's attitudes have been changing over the past 15 years, but China is still the world's biggest consumer of dogs," says Robinson. In northern China, large dogs such as St Bernards and Tibetan Mastiffs were being cross-bred with local dogs to create fast-growing, large meat dogs that could be slaughtered as young as four months old, she says. Even in cosmopolitan cities such as Beijing, dog restaurants remain part of the cityscape, most popular in winter as dog meat is supposed to keep you warm and tastes like beef according to those who have tried.

Skinning of live dogs for fur also takes place in China, mainly because it helps preserve the skin of the canines, according to animal activists. Yu Fachang, an official in charge of market order at the State Administration of Industry and Commerce, this month confirmed the practice was ongoing.

"Currently, in some parts of the country, in some animal markets, animals are skinned alive, like cats and dogs. These are individual cases taking place at individual markets," he said. "We still don't have any laws on the slaughtering of ordinary animals such as cats and dogs, as they do not belong into the category of traditional food," he said, adding that regulation was being prepared.

Rock star Paul McCartney said in November he would never perform in China after watching a disturbing secret video of dogs and cats in a market being slaughtered for fur. The video, from the German branch of the animal rights group PETA, shows caged dogs in wire cages being hurled from the top deck of a converted double-decker bus onto a concrete pavement at a market in southern Chinese. "This is barbaric. Horrific. It's like something out of the dark ages. And they seem to get a kick out of it. They're just sick, sick people," McCartney told BBC television.

Canine stew with spicy dog-brain sauce

In dog-loving Japan, most people seemed unaware that dog cuisine is served up at Chinese restaurants until 30 dog heads were found dumped in a shallow moat around a Tokyo jail in December. Police found that a meat importer had dumped the heads after he could sell only the bodies of the animals bought from China.

At the Peking Stand restaurant in Tokyo, pictures on the walls show pictures of dog meat next to fried seafood, vegetables and stewed beef. In one picture, four shiny brown dog paws are placed neatly on a white plate for a price of 2,000 yen (17 dollars). There is also canine stew served with spicy dog-brain sauce.

"I use imported dog brain that is already processed and packaged," 40-year-old owner Wang Wei Min says. "You mix in some herbs and spices." Wang, who openly advertises that his four-chef outlet cooks up dog meat, says he gets a fair share of Japanese customers among the largely Chinese clientele, along with the occasional critic.

"People who are against eating dog also oppose eating whale and horse meat, but Japanese people eat those. So it's the same thing," he says. "It's part of an eating culture that has lasted a long, long time, so you can't do anything about that."

Dog meat has also been eaten traditionally in Korea, where many enjoy the delicacy, especially during hot summer days, though some such restaurants went underground after criticism during the 1988 Seoul Olympics and 2002 World Cup.

Dogs for meat, usually mongrels, are raised in farms, confined to narrow cages. They are usually killed by electric shock at slaughter houses but in many cases, dogs are butchered in traditional ways in the South Korean countryside. They are hanged and beaten to death to make their meat more tender. The meat is usually boiled with vegetables, fermented bean curd and chilli powder to create Boshintang, or "body-supporting soup". For the more devoted eater, the meat is steamed and offered with special sauce for the dish known as Sooyook.

Diminishing appetite

Consumption of dog meat, however, has reduced considerably over the past several years in South Korea, says Lee Won-Bok, head of the Korea Association for Animal Protection.

"More and more Koreans feel aversion toward eating dogs as the perception of dogs as pets is spreading," he says. The number of pet pooches in the country increased to 3.5 million in 2005 from 2.7 million five years earlier, with one out of every five households keeping pet dogs. The scale of the pet industry, including parlours, dog restaurants, clothing shops and hotels, is estimated at 1.9 billion dollars last year, according to industry sources.

A dog's typical life is also improving in China. The pet dog population has reached 150 million, with experts predicting that the market for dog food and accessories could reach six billion yuan (741 million dollars) by 2008.

Activists hope dog loving will become the norm as it is in Hong Kong and Taiwan, where the animals are rarely eaten and selling dog meat is banned. Taiwanese people are following those in Japan by lavishing money on their pets, creating an industry that observers estimate to be worth more than 20 billion Taiwan dollars (625 million US) a year. Pet cafes and restaurants have mushroomed across the island in the past few years while boutiques, photo studios, clubs, hotels and spas open one after another to cash in on the trend.

Robinson says dogs prefer a better life. Besides a history of serving mankind as guides for blind people and on mountain rescue missions, recent studies suggest dogs are now even able to accurately sniff out prostate and lung cancer, she says.

"They perform incredible services to human kind and deserve better than to be food for the table," Robinson says. - AFP/ir
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