Create Change
While people’s perceptions in South Korea about the dog meat industry are changing, there is still a ways to go before the climate turns favourable for an all out ban on the trade. For one, the practice of consuming dog meat is closely bound with tradition, and while a lot of people don’t consume dog meat themselves, they are not ready to challenge the practice. Secondly, dogs reared on farms are considered to be “different” and “incapable” of being companion dogs, unlike “pet” dogs. In reality, the dog meat trade is widely supplemented with dogs from the pet industry as well as those that are reared as puppies on factory farms.
Unfortunately, these beliefs are what continue to secure support for the trade today, allowing some Korean lawmakers to push for the legalization of the dog meat industry through regulation by classifying certain breeds of dogs as livestock.
However, there is reason to feel hopeful. The recent rise in pet ownership, especially among the younger generations, has vastly helped spur on the growing societal discontent between proponents and opponents of the dog meat industry and there is an increasingly vocal opposition to the trade.
HSI, CFAF and other local activists and organizations are working together to devise approaches to ending the trade for good—in a way that will bring dog meat farmers on board to voluntarily give up their dogs for rehoming and close their farms, establishing cropbased, non-animal farms in their place.
These efforts have met with great success and continue to do so every single day. In 2015 alone, HSI, in tandem with CFAF, closed down four dog meat farms. Over 224 dogs were rescued from these farms and then rehomed. Both organizations hope to continue bringing about more farm closures while simultaneously working to raise the profile of meat dogs to show them as great companions.
With the upcoming 2018 Winter Olympics being held in South Korea, both organizations hope to continue building on the current momentum and use the exposure of the games to garner public support to eventually compel the government to ban the consumption of dog meat once and for all.