By Angela Leary

GUANGDONG PROVINCE, China -- Dogs at the Maoshan Animal Market huddle deep inside their enclosures. In one filthy cage, more than 100 crush together in a pack of wretchedness. Most shiver, but not from cold – they seek a different warmth.

One by one, these trembling animals will be dragged out and slowly bludgeoned to death as their terrified pack-mates watch, cowering and whimpering, wondering who goes next. The market on the outskirts of bustling Guangzhou, southern China’s largest city, supplies restaurants with dog meat.

Local people believe that the meat tastes better if the dogs cringe in panic, electric with adrenalin, before death. So the killings happen slowly. After heavy blows to snouts with a rough-hewn truncheon, like a baseball bat, the victims must absorb pain for a few minutes, crying in anguish, curdling the blood of the other dogs waiting.

Often the dying dogs stagger up to their tormentors, tails wagging feebly, in hopes of a reprieve. There’s no mercy. Tortuous beatings continue until the dogs, lapsing in and out of consciousness, finally succumb.

Such is a dog’s life in much of China, even during the celebrated Year of the Dog now ending. The Hong Kong-based Animals Asia Foundation (AAF) had vowed to use the Chinese zodiac to push for a ban on dog meat. The AAF’s British founder Jill Robinson says that in China millions of dogs per year are brutally slaughtered, often by beating, electrocution or hanging.

“It’s absolutely heartbreaking. Before the dogs arrive at the markets, many spend three or four days on trucks, crammed together in tiny cages. They get nothing to eat or drink. If they’re lucky, they’re hosed down just to keep them alive.”

Robinson denies the accusations of cultural imperialism from her critics who claim that for the Chinese, eating dogs or cats compares to consuming lamb or beef. “There’s a huge difference. Herd animals have evolved to adapt better to living in groups. Farm animals in general have been genetically selected to adapt better to captivity and farming practices,” she says.

“We don’t want to imply that livestock animals don’t suffer. They do. But dogs are carnivores. They’re pack animals, and hierarchy is important. In the markets, crammed into cages, their competition for food and females in season, plus the stress of seeing other dogs slaughtered, leads to aggression and fighting.” Disease runs rife too.

This is just one injustice for canines in China. Often, pedigree animals get tossed out of middle-class homes when new breeds become fashionable. Starving stray dogs must struggle to survive, and the authorities lack interest in humane euthanasia. Bands of municipal workers prowl the streets of southern provinces on “culling days” to bludgeon dogs, both strays and pets, to death, sometimes in the full view of horrified pet-owners.

Luckily, notions of animal welfare may be seeping into place. “Momentum for change is building, and the great thing is that it comes from within China,” Robinson said.

The AAF has launched Friends… or Food, a national campaign to tackle cruelty, neglect and the eating of dogs and cats. At a China Companion Animal Symposium in Guangzhou recently, 32 animal-welfare groups voted unanimously to push for banning the use of meat from dogs or cats.

In China, companion animals lack legal protection. Professor Song Wei, a law lecturer at the University of Science and Technology in Hefei, Anhui Province, says the legal structure’s so vast and complex that it’s best to amend the local laws now aimed at controlling animals and their numbers.

“We need a shift in attitudes and a change in our culture. We must combine loving hearts with the law,” Song said. “There’s been much progress even in the past five years. Abuse cases today spark public outrage. There’s much more awareness of animal welfare.”

A new generation leads the way, says Li Yunjun, who three years ago started Private Pet Home, an enterprise in Panyu, near Guangzhou, to rescue strays and to educate people. “My parents eat the meat from dogs and cats, despite knowing about the cruelty,” he said. “They don’t accept what I do and can’t understand why I’d care about animals.” But Li believes that few young, urban people would eat such meat. “They see it as ugly and unacceptable.”

The practice lingers in the countryside where men boast of how much dog meat they can devour in a sitting. Li believes this will change, but only with new attitudes, not just laws. “Corruption’s a huge problem. Laws would help, but the people wanting to keep the industry going just need to pay money.”

Guangzhou resident Christie Yang Min, who left an international public-relations firm to help the AAF, calls the change irreversible. She credits the Internet for spreading the word and for allowing disparate animal-rights groups to offer mutual support: “Co-operation is crucial in a big country like China.”

Huang Xiaomao leads one of many small groups using the Internet to distribute information and to teach responsible pet-care. “Our job is mainly education through our Internet bulletin board,” she says. “We want to create a cyber radio station to discuss pet protection. Education’s so important.”

Even in cosmopolitan Hong Kong, ignorance persists. “At first, I felt shocked,” says Anneleise Smillie, the AAF’s education director. “Many children genuinely believe that dogs have no feelings, that they’re incapable of emotions or physical pain.”

She describes a recent exchange with children at a school:
“Can Mao Mao feel sad?”
“Noooooo!”
“Can Mao Mao feel happy?”
“Noooooo!” the children chant again, giggling at the absurdity.

Mao Mao, a golden retriever, participates in “Professor Paws”, an AAF programme to give children a lasting respect for dogs while easing fears and misconceptions. Volunteers take their dogs into schools so that the students can chat and pet the animals. Often it’s the first time that some youngsters touch a dog.

AAF executive director Annie Mather says that often ignorance, not deliberate cruelty, leads to mistreatment: “Many Hong Kong people take their dogs for walks by carrying them because they don’t want them to get dirty feet and make a mess indoors. They don’t realise that dogs need exercise.

“One woman on the Chinese mainland adored her little dog and washed it every day in dishwashing liquid. She couldn’t understand why the animal lost its fur.”

Wu Jun of the Zhuhai Animal Protection Association in Guangdong Province decided to share a shameful secret. “My wife and I once went to a restaurant and saw meat being sliced off animals while they were still alive,” he said, struggling with emotion. “I couldn’t tell this to a foreigner before. Dogs and cats can’t talk, but we can, so we need to speak out even louder.”


Angela Leary works with the Hong Kong-based Animals Asia Foundation.

ARCHIVES

Huddled and shivering in fear, dozens of dogs await the worst.


Doomed faces peer out from the meat-market Gulag.


Pawed prisoners prepare for a nasty fate.


This cringing, trembling captive knows what to expect.


Semi-conscious and suffering, a dog lingers near death.


Battered, lifeless canines then roll toward eatery kitchens.