Anyone here ever eat dog?

[Lucas]

Eating dog in Vietnam is still common

[GeneChing]

Strange how the number 400 comes up twice here.

Shanghai shelter struggles to help dogs rescued from Yulin festival
Staff Reporter 2015-09-01 09:12 (GMT+8)


A stand selling dog meat at last year's Lychee and Dog Meat Festival in Yulin, June 21, 2014. (File photo/Xinhua)

Animal rights activists may count a qualified victory in managing to save dogs from slaughter at the annual dog meat festival in southern China by buying them on site, but the escape of the "Yulin dogs" to a shelter in Shanghai has not guaranteed their survival, reports the Chinese-language Reference News.

The controversial Lychee and Dog Meat Festival, held annually in late June in South China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, has begun in recent years to draw international attention and criticism as an estimated 10,000 dogs are slaughtered for food during the event. This year, one animal protection shelter in Shanghai that has been sheltering "Yulin dogs" saw the arrival of nearly 1,400 dogs otherwise destined for slaughter that had been purchased by well-meaning activists.

The dogs were shipped on a 35-hour journey before arriving at the shelter and joining the 400 dogs rescued from last year's festival, according to Hong Kong's Sing Pao.

Life at the shelter is rough for the animals, however, Reference News reported, and one of the shelter's volunteers says dogs have been dying every day since their arrival. The shelter speculates that the confined conditions of the journey from Yulin enabled the easy spread of canine distemper, one of the leading causes of death among canines.

Some dogs were already dead by the time they arrived, crushed in the tight confines, said one of the volunteers. "A considerable number were killed by distemper...and some have managed to find homes," another added.

After a little over two months since the new arrivals, only 400 dogs remain at the shelter, the report said.

When the issue was at the forefront of the nation's attention in July, the shelter was showered in funds and aid with dozens of volunteers, veterinarians and food coming in from all over the country, said Chang Fan, one of the shelter's volunteers. Now that the attention has died down, however, the shelter has only three regular volunteers and struggles to make ends meet from donations. The dogs' future thus still remains unclear despite their rescue, the report said.