(VN) Major victory for dogs in Vietnam

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Feed: Jill's Blog

Posted on: 19 February, 2009 2:17 PM

Major victory for dogs in Vietnam

 

I’ll never forget filming dogs being slaughtered in a restaurant in Hanoi

several years ago. For two long hours I silently cried on the inside, while

making a pathetic attempt to look calm on the outside, so that the people

slaughtering the dogs would really believe that I was writing a travel brochure

on the delights of “exotic†food in Vietnam.

 

In full view of the others, these dogs were dragged out of “pig cratesâ€,

bludgeoned over the head with a hammer, and then bled out via a knife into their

jugular and heart. It was brutal and cruel – especially seeing the dogs

waiting for death turning their heads away from the strangled screams and the

last struggled breaths of life.

 

With our staff and resources limited, we knew that it made sense to focus on

bears in Vietnam – where bear farming was illegal too – and so we agreed to

postpone a dog and cat campaign until the bear rescue and sanctuary were well

under way.

 

As ever, fate played a hand. In early February, Tuan Bendixsen, our Vietnam, received an official letter from the Central Department of Animal

Health, Ministry of Agriculture. Apparently they had received official requests

from various provincial governments in the country asking the department to

provide them with the government's guidelines on the slaughtering of dogs for

human consumption. Tuan's heart stopped when he heard this news and he began to

work on a submission to the department – in defence of dogs.

 

Tuan knew it was important to collate evidence from other Asian countries that

had banned dog eating, rather than only using laws from the West, and we

immediately contacted Nita, Anna and team from PAWS, the Philippine Animal

Welfare Society (who coordinate our Dr Dog programme in Manila) as we knew that

we could count on their support. Within a heartbeat, Anna was sending over all

the relevant documents and legislation from the Philippines – summarising a

campaign that they had worked on for so many years until dog-eating became

illegal.

 

Tuan’s final letter to the government outlined our Dr Dog programme in seven

countries of Asia and why the benefits of being in the company of companion

animals far outweighed their value as a food source. He stated that no country

in the world has developed a humane method of dog slaughter under intensive

farming practices and that countries, such as Hong Kong, Singapore, Philippines,

Taiwan had already banned dog meat from the table.

 

Tuan even touched on the economics of raising dogs as food compared with raising

them as companions – citing the growing pet industry in Beijing and how much

pet owners were contributing to the economy. And of course he made clear about

the health risks to those

involved in the dog-meat trade and to consumers themselves, highlighting

parasites, rabies, leptospirosis, and other disease. Finally he offered Animals

Asia’s help in promoting public education programmes across the country as we

are currently doing in China – emphasising why dogs are our friends, not food.

 

Within a few days, the response came back and here, in Tuan’s own words this

morning, is the official announcement from the government:

 

â€I’m very happy to announce that the Central Department of Animal Health has

put out an official letter saying that the Central Government of Vietnam will

not enact a regulation on the processing of dog meat for human consumption.

Although the local government can enact such a regulation for their own area,

usually they will not go against the Central Government’s directive. I’m now

looking at getting the Central Govt to officially ban it instead of just not

enacting it. Thank you every one and especially Anna from PAWS. Although this is

an important first step, we still have a long way to go to achieve our main goal

of ending the consumption of companion animals in Vietnam.â€

 

This is an incredible victory for the dogs of Vietnam – and potentially in

China too where we can use this development in our efforts to persuade similar

bans there. Tuan, I know that everyone reading this blog will be so proud of

this first, significant step for the dogs of

Vietnam.

 

Here's Tuan at our rescue centre with Max, a puppy bred for slaughter. Max is

now part of our Vietnam family.

 

View article: http://www.animalsasia.org/blog/index.php?entry=entry090218-221648

 

[From Moderator: for a better understanding of Jill's heroism in the first two

paragraphs above, go to:

http://www.aapn.org/fooddogs.html - scroll down to Vietnam at the bottom of the

page.

But we warned, don't go there if you are squeamish.]