‘Heartbroken’ Kenworthy visits dog meat farm, adopts puppy
SIHEUNG, South Korea — Gus Kenworthy stood stone-faced, a shivering black puppy curled in his arms and more scurrying around him on the dirty, uneven cement floor. A few feet away, the pups’ mother barked and paced, eyeing the 2014 Olympic silver medalist while trying not to trip over the metal chain anchoring her to the wall. Nearly 90 other dogs in and around the cluttered, thin-walled structure also woofed and howled, a cacophony that could be heard from the nearby highway, even over the whoosh of traffic.
“It’s one of the saddest places I’ve ever been,” Kenworthy said.
Four years after rescuing five stray dogs during the Sochi Games, the American freestyle skier visited a dog meat farm in South Korea with boyfriend Matthew Wilkas on Friday and decided to adopt a puppy . The Associated Press joined them for a tour of the facility, which Humane Society International has begun to shutter.
Kenworthy slowly explored the property in a haze, and Wilkas spent much of the visit nervously chewing on his lip. Neither wants to dictate to Koreans what they should and shouldn’t eat, but they believe strongly that even animals raised for slaughter deserve higher quality of life.
“I’m honestly feeling heartbroken,” Kenworthy said.
The farm is situated less than 100 yards off a busy road, about a 45-minute drive from downtown Seoul. Puppies and their mothers are living inside a narrow planthouse, surrounded by rusty pipes, grimy ceramic pots and old mattresses. Outside, many dogs pulled hard on their chains, creating muddy semicircles in the snow beneath their feet. A dozen or so wood and wire cages held between one and four dogs each. In the back of one crate, a dog was licking a furless newborn puppy that did not appear to be alive.
Nara Kim, HSI’s South Korea dog meat campaigner, has seen worse. The Siheung farmer told HSI he never intended to sell dogs for slaughter but had no choice when his collection of pet Jindo dogs kept producing puppies. He eagerly accepted HSI’s proposal to buy out his farm, and he plans to put those funds into farming mushrooms and other plants.
HSI’s ultimate goal is to pressure the South Korean government into shuttering the industry itself. In the meantime, it’s trying to set an example for how Koreans might do it — by providing resources to farmers who want out.
HSI estimates there are 17,000 dog meat farms around Korea. This farm will be the 11th it has helped close.