SAVED FROM THE COOKING POT
UK families adopt 30 dogs from 1m ‘farmed’ for soup trade in S Korea
THIRTY dogs have been adopted by British families to save them from the cooking pot in South Korea.
Up to a million of the animals are killed to provide soup in the country’s traditional Bok Nal summer dog-eating ritual. The 30 creatures were rescued from dog meat farms by the charity Humane Society International/UK (HSI).
Journalist Pip Tomson, 45, who adopted Robin, a one-year-old Maltese cross, to join an earlier rescue called Bindi, said they were saved ‘just in time’.
She stressed: ‘Another couple of weeks and they would have been slaughtered.’
Miss Thomson, from Launton, Oxfordshire, rescued Bindi two years ago when she came across a newspaper article on dog meat farms. She said the Chihuahua cross was ‘traumatised’ when she first met her at a shelter, adding: ‘She was absolutely terrified. She was hiding under tables but I sat on the floor for ages with her. I just fell in love with her there and then.
‘It’s all because on this dog meat farm she wasn’t shown any compassion at all. She has made astonishing progress but it has required gentle handling and a lot of patience.’
Miss Tomson adopted Robin, who she nicknames Thugface because of his cheeky antics, from HSI last October.
She said: ‘He’s the cutest little dog. Compared to Bindi, he is actually remarkably undamaged.
‘He’s a very confident, cocky little dog. I’ve always said that I love my dogs more than I love most people. They are my world – my happy place.’
Robin was one of 200 dogs rescued from the farm of Jong-Min Lee, 71, who asked HSI to get him out of the controversial trade. The charity has rescued 1,800 dogs since 2015 while 14 dog meat farms have been closed as a result of its efforts.
Charity worker Wendy Higgins, 45, who went to South Korea to rescue Robin, said animals endure ‘extremely harsh’ conditions. She explained: ‘Dogs are confined their whole lives in small, barren, filthy cages exposed to the bitter cold of winter and searing heat of summer.
‘At around one year of age, most dogs on farms will be dragged off to market where they are killed by electrocution and butchered for dog meat soup.’