Documentary looks at Thai dog smugglers
As many as 200,000 dogs a year are smuggled out of Thailand, across the Mekong River and into Vietnam. The cruel journeys — in which the dogs are crammed in cages — last for days. The destination is even, by Western standards, meaner yet.
While smuggling the dogs is illegal, killing, cooking and eating them is not, and remains a tradition among some in China, Vietnam and South Korea.
Dogs commonly become dehydrated, stressed, and die during the trips, in which they are packed 20 or more to a cage, and 1,000 or more to a truck.
“Obviously when you’ve got dogs stacked on top of each other they start biting each other because they are so uncomfortable, any kind of movement then the dog next to the one that’s being crushed is going to bite back,” said Tuan Bendixsen, director of Animals Asia Foundation Vietnam, a Hanoi-based animal welfare group.
When they arrive in Vietnam, the dogs are bludgeoned to death and have their throats slit before they are butchered for their meat.
Some animal rights activisists say the stress all that inflicts, even before death, is intentional — that some believe the stress and fear release hormones that improves the taste of the meat.
While some of the dogs rounded up in Thailand are strays — known as soi dogs — John Dalley of the Phuket-based Soi Dog Foundation estimates 98% of them are domesticated and says some are wearing collars and have been trained and respond to commands.
“You can see all types of pedigree animals in these captured Thai shipments — golden retrievers, long-haired terriers, you name it,” says Dalley. “Some are bought. Others are snatched from streets, temples, and even people’s gardens.”
A dog in Thailand can sell for $10, according to animal rights activists, but they’re worth $60 once they are served up in restaurants in Vietnam, where they estimate a million dogs a year are eaten.
The trade is illegal in Thailand, but, with no animal cruelty laws, traders are commonly charged with illegally transporting animals. The smugglers usually receive sentences of just a few months in jail. And the dogs taken from them often wind up being captured again by traders, and shipped again to Vietnam to become meat.
Posted by John Woestendiek June 3rd, 2013 under Muttsblog, videos.
Tags: animal welfare, animals, asia, china, cruelty, culture, documentary, dog meat, dogs, eating, korea, meat, pets, smugglers, smuggling, soi dog foundation, strays, stress, thai, thailand, the shadow trade, traditions, transporting, vietnam