Tuesday, August 01, 2006

Mass Slaughter Of Dogs In China... Again

A county in south-west China has ordered all 50,546 dogs to be killed to fight a rabies outbreak which has killed three people, state media says.

It has taken five days, but authorities in Mouding County in south-west China say they have killed almost all of the 50,000 dogs in the area.

Some of the dogs were clubbed to death in the street as their owners watched.

Other dog owners took matters into their own hands, poisoning or electrocuting their pets.

They were paid around $0.60 (£0.32) for each dog in compensation.

China has a poor record of animal protection. There are no laws to prevent cruelty to pets.


This is reminiscent of what happened during the Cultural Revolution, when dogs were slaughtered en masse for evil political purposes. This is why we refer to these kinds of things as a Dog Holocaust.

There had to be a better way to do this. They could easily have asked animal welfare groups to help raise funds for vaccines (though, if you read the article, they even killed the vaccinated dogs). This cull was inhumane in every way. This is why you need better laws protecting dogs and dog ownership everywhere in the world. You couldn't do this in the USA

I really don't dislike China. I have great hopes for China, but they have so much baggage left over from their feudal ways, then colonialism, and the horrors of Communism... It is going to take a long time. I would love to travel there, and even better, conduct training seminars for dog owners and government officials. There is a lot of good to be accomplished. Who knows? Maybe someone is reading this and might make that connection happen.

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