Sadly, dogs are tortured, slaughtered, and eaten by humans in several countries in South East Asia. Despite public outrage in most of these countries, dog meat continues to be sold in markets and served in restaurants.
Some dogs are born and raised on dog “farms” with horrendous conditions – they live their lives in tiny wire cages where disease and death are rampant. Still, many others are picked off the streets as strays, or stolen out of yards by dog thieves. Then they are crammed into tiny cages and trucked off to slaughter – often from a country where dog meat consumption is illegal. They arrive to be butchered, thirsty, hungry, often injured, and sometimes still wearing their collars.
When dogs are taken to the slaughterhouse, they are piled into cages on top of each other, unable to stand and barely able to move. They live in this misery for days, dirty, hungry, thirsty, and whining with anxiety.
Some will die before they are removed from the cages, the others will be bludgeoned, boiled alive, electrocuted, or stabbed in the chest to die slowly – this is because some people believe the meat will be more tender if dogs are tortured before death.
The dogs caught up in this barbaric industry are just the same as our pets here in North America. They are intelligent and emotional creatures who crave love.
Fortunately, public opinion in these countries is trending against the consumption of dog meat, activists and citizens are speaking out against the practice, and policy changes are slowly but surely taking place.