Friends....or Food?

[Guest guest]

Changing Attitudes in China

 

Hope for the future!

 

 

Amidst all this bad news for dogs and cats, there is hope. Pet

ownership is exploding in China and research shows that pet owners

disagree with dog and cat eating.

 

The demographics in China are changing rapidly. Traditionally,

entire families would live together, but today the trend is for

young Chinese to move out and set up their own homes, and thus the

older generation are living alone, and the trend is to buy a dog for

company. The advent of the one child family policy on the mainland

has resulted in lots of lonely children and increasingly pet dogs

are bought for company.

 

But despite this, pet ownership is growing rapidly. Estimates are

that there are now over half a million registered dogs in Beijing,

with many millions unregistered. Having a dog is now a status symbol

and it seems that long term, the pet dog industry maybe a much

bigger money spinner than the meat dog industry. Wealthy young

Mainlanders lavish money on their pets and suddenly pet shops and

salons are popping up all over the big cities. The situation for

dogs in the country is unchanged - traditionally there has been a

very practical approach taken to dogs - they guard your house and

then they are eaten - however, the fact is that opinions for the

whole country are made in the key cities.

 

With attitudes to dogs in transition ( " pampered pet " , " meat

dog " , " pet dog " , " street dog " , " rabied dog " ), we believe that we

have a window of opportunity to raise the profile of dogs and cats,

showing them as our friends and helpers, in need of our love,

respect and protection - thus it is that we are expanding our Dr.

Dog programme, together with distributing our " Dr. Eddie: Friend or

Food " inspirational and educational film which compels people to

reconsider their attitude to dog and cat eating.

 

Please visit :

 

http://www.animalsasia.org

 

Thanks,Claudia