A VERY BRITISH RESCUE MISSION
The utterly inspiring story of how a Lord, a rocker and a sitcom star saved hundreds of hounds from being boiled alive in the world’s cruellest dog farms (and how YOU can help, too)
WITH hairy paws waggling in the air, silky ears flopping and wet tongues lolling pink and hot and wet, Elsa and Bounce tumble about the Duke of Bedford’s spectacular 300- acre Woburn Estate in Bedfordshire like naughty puppies.
They gleam with good health. Their eyes are bright and sharp. They chase butterflies and fat bumblebees among the lavender and look relaxed and happy and blissfully untroubled. All of which, frankly, is extraordinary. Because barely four months ago both were living a life of unimaginable pain, incarcerated in tiny raised wire cages in a dog meat farm in South K orea. Their food was liquidised leftovers gathered from the bins of filthy restaurants, disease - ridden poultry and ground-up dead dogs.
They were never given water . They were riddled with fleas and the smell and noise was unimaginable. But far worse were the tiny prison cells they shared with four or five other dogs.
The wire floors gave them sores. There was no blanket to protect them from the snow and gales of the minus 20c winters. No shade under which to cower from the blistering 40c sun in summer.
In cages all around them were dogs of every shape, size, colour and breed — everything from traditional Korean nureongis, to labradors, retrievers, springer spaniels, great danes, poodles, beagles and even chihuahuas — some bred there, others abandoned pets.
All day long Elsa, Bounce and their fellow inmates would bark and howl in vain for any kind of attention: a kind hand, a soft word, or just a bowl of water.
But if their lives were bleak , their future was bleaker. The minute they were fully grown, they would be slaughtered. If they were lucky , electrocuted with a rod in their mouth or ear , before having their throats slit.
If they weren ’t, they might be strung up and beaten with a wooden plank. Or perhaps skinned alive, thrown in a vast cylindrical de-hairing machine (like a tumble drier) or boiled in a vast tank.
And all so they could provide the key ingredient in a traditional South Korean delicacy called bosintang — a broth with green onions, dandelions and spices believed to increase virility.
Elsa and Bounce were two of an estimated 2.5 million dogs due to be slaughtered this year in South Korea (the only country in the world that practises intensive dog meat farm - ing, with more than 15,000 farms).
BUT thanks to the relentless efforts of Lola W ebber, an extraordinary British campaigner who has dedicated her life and her charity Animals For Change to saving K orea’s dogs, the actor Peter Egan, Lord Robin Russell, director of W oburn Abbey and younger brother of the multi-millionaire Duke of Bedford, and the Humane Society International (HSI), their luck changed spectacularly.
Because their farm was one of nine shut down by the HSI over recent months, freeing more than 850 dogs and giving them a second chance at life.
Many, including Bounce’s eight puppies born in captivity, have been taken to the u . S. — some to the housewives of Beverly Hills, where they lounge by outdoor pools, snooze on sofas and eat tastier food than they could ever have dreamed of.
Others roam happily on ranches in Canada. And a good number are scattered around the uK.
Peter Egan, familiar to many from Eighties TV sitcom Ever Decreasing Circles, has five rescue dogs already and campaigns tirelessly on behalf of badly treated dogs. ‘I’ve become the man who can’t say no!’ he says.
Dozens more are being trained by the charity Medical Detection Dogs as ‘ bio- detection’ dogs — profes - sional sniffers who can detect the scent of cancer in human patients and are proven in prostate cancer tests to be more reliable than the current NHS method.
Earlier this year , Good Morning Britain presenter Philippa T omson gave a miniature lap dog called Bindi a new home. Bindi is so tiny it was a miracle she hadn ’ t frozen to death on her farm near the city of Wonju.
Even Rick Wakeman, the veteran rocker, on- off member of rock band Yes, songwriter and TV personality , was moved to tears when he first heard of the dogs’ plight.
‘If I find a bumble bee trapped in the house, I’ll spend an hour trying to catch it and get it out of the window,’ he says. ‘And then there are some people who can do this to dogs and then go home and sleep quite happily at night.
‘ There must be genetic thing missing, surely? It ’ s just not necessary, in this day and age. Someone had to do something.’
SO AS ONE of the world’s best keyboard players, he’s doing what he does best and is organising a star - studded charity concert in January to help raise money and awareness of these dogs’ pitiful plight.
‘I came up with the idea of a big concert and I called it “Barking for Love” because when anyone goes to see the dogs, the animals press themselves to the side of the cage barking, desperate for love.
‘ We’ve had so many people contacting us — we’ve had a phenomenal amount of support already — we’re just waiting to firm up the date.’
For while this lucky pair , Elsa and Bounce, found themselves on the Woburn Estate, pottering through Lord Russell’s apple trees, stretching out on his immaculate lawns and sleeping under his desk , millions more dogs are still rammed four or five to a cage, riddled with worms and infection, awaiting an unneces - sarily barbaric death.
Many South Koreans still believe that the more the dog suffered during death, the more virile the soup will make them.
As Lord Russell explains: ‘It seems a case of the more inhumane the better — they want as much adrenaline flowing through their system as possible, which is the opposite to modern abattoirs.’
‘It’s horrendous,’ adds W akeman. ‘They hook some out of the cage and drop them in boiling water , butchering them without mercy, but it’s not as if there’s a food shortage or anything.’
Rick hasn’t yet been able to face a trip to South Korea: ‘I’ll be brutally honest with you — unless I was going out there to close one down, I think it would upset me so badly I’m not sure I could cope.’
Of course, not everyone in South Korea condones dog farms. Most of the increasingly Westernised young wouldn’t dream of eating the soup.
Even the dog meat farmers claim that they want to stop, but say they can ’t afford to because the market is too strong and the returns too tempting.
And last month, in an unprece - dented move, even the country’s new P resident Moon adopted a rescue dog called Tory in the belief, he said, ‘that humans and animals
have the right to be free from prejudice and discrimination’.
However, the tide is only beginning to turn and the farmers need an alternative way of making a living.
Which is why campaigner Lola Webber, the Humane Society International and Lord Russell are frantically trying to raise money to retrain them in anything from blueberry to chilli farming, while they release the dogs and move them to safety.
For Elsa and Bounce, this meant three months in quarantine, before being flown at a cost of £1,500 and in a large blanketed plastic crate that must seem positively Ritz-like after their previous home, to Woburn where, thanks to Lord Russell — who already has five rescue dogs and is pondering more — their lives have begun afresh.
Elsa lives with Louise Collins, a local vet, never leaves her side and is incredibly loving and attentive.
‘She was very jealous of my other dogs to start with and very possessive of her food, but that’s all stopped now,’ says Louise. ‘ Now she chews and savours her food. She follows me around like a shadow and she’s incredibly playful — it’s as if she has just forgotten.’
Meanwhile, Bounce — who lives with Lord Russell’s secretary, Kate Sibley, and her two black labradors — has put on nearly half a stone in four months, sleeps as close as she can get to Kate’s bed each night and sprawls happily beneath her desk every day, paws crossed over her nose as she snores.
Kate says: ‘She’s had such a terrible time, but it’s all behind her now. And she has really enhanced my life.’
All the dogs seem to have adapted astonishingly well in just a few months. Philippa Tomson’s Bindi has already bloomed in both confidence and size.
A hairy cross- breed called Shadow has started to dance with happiness — pirouetting and twirling on her back legs whenever she gets excited — about a walk, dinner, or just her new life in South-West London.
And Caspian, an impossibly shiny lap dog adopted by British ambassador to South Korea, Charles Hayes, and his family, is fearless, loving, loyal, if a little too fond of chewing the ambassadorial socks.
OF COURSE, nine farms out of an estimated 15,000 is a minuscule number. But hopefully this campaign will now start to gather momentum, more farms will be closed down and more rescued dogs will need new homes.
As Elsa and Bounce tumble and tussle on Woburn Abbey’s immaculately mowed lawns, it is already impossible to imagine them in their old lives, cooped up in their own mess, depressed, freezing and waiting for death.
If only the same could be said for the millions of other dogs in the same predicament.
So please, sign the HSI petition at hsi.org/helpprotectdogs, write a letter of support, make a donation to help close down these barbaric torture farms and get dog meat taken off the supermarket shelves for good. And, of course, support Rick Wakeman’s ‘Barking for Love’ concert in January when the date is announced.
‘We’re winning the battle, but incredibly slowly,’ he says. ‘So we wanted to do something that would really raise the awareness and turn things about.’
Or if you really love dogs, would like to adopt one and can provide a loving home, contact HSI, because it could change not only the dog’s life, but yours, too.
After all, for centuries, dogs have protected us, helped the blind, led us to safety and been loyal and loving companions.
Or, as Rick puts it: ‘ Dogs are different. They really connect with humans. They look to us for love and affection and will give it back the same way. They’re unlike other animals in this respect.’
Surely it’s time to start repaying the debt.