The Horrors of the Dog Meat Trade

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Went straight to sleep after breakfast for an hour in our hotel and had to be rung to wake up. We got onto the bus to the dogs feeling apprehensive and still very drowsy. We had prepared ourselves for the absolute worst which was wise considering the situation is pretty desperate.

The first sense that the scene confronted was smell, this spoke of the massive population kept with limited staff and within inadequate space. The dogs are being held in an agriculture quarantine centre usually used for cows. The dogs are in large concrete pens, hundreds in each, over 2060 on the site including two litters of puppies. The dogs are not yet sorted by sex, they came off the truck 2days ago, but puppies is the last thing they need. Our first job was to round up males, catch them with a loop lead, muzzle them and carry them to a separate pen. I’ve never handled a dog in my life, I would admit that even pet dogs make me nervous and here the amount of them is overwhelming, they are frightened and frankly so was I. I quickly realised how gentle the vast majority of them were, especially the girls. I sat with one, soaking wet and trembling as I took in the scene and found some sort of centre inside myself to operate from. I lost my gloves as they make the dogs more fearful, you just have to trust them and act with a gentle authority that helps them to trust you. We were breaking up fights and trying to identify the most sick as we went. One dog was pulled out dead, a sickening moment. Many others did not even rise when food was delivered, too sick to get up or not wanted to face the stronger dogs who scrap over the food bins. We also delivered antibiotics in pig intestine. This was a test of my new found confidence with dogs as you are entering a pen with hundreds of dogs, scared and over excited, smelling like dog food. My nerves made me giggle when all I got was a lot of playful licks on my fingers as I moved through the crowds looking for signs of infection. In the vet clinic, the students were doing their best to clear up the worst wounds we could find.

There were two litters of puppies, in the treatment room on the tiled floor; the staff said they were impossible to move as the mother’s were aggressive. We found this with the three day old puppies but the other litter was a few weeks older and the mother was harmless. We took her to a quiet room away from the stress, noise and disease of the clinic. We examined each puppy and were permitted a cuddle before she took them back, this time with a new blanket.

One dog in particular of many, had scabies right down from her neck to her back, the wound was open and rancid with secondary infection. I scooped her up and carried her to the centre. No lead, no muzzle, she was just so willing to be taken out of the chaos and the rain. I managed to hold her while we waited for a table, I just didn’t want to put her in a cage to wait alone, she weighed over 30kg but lay limp and co-operative in my arms. The vet student, Emily, who is amazing to see work, showed me how to keep her still while we worked. It must have been so painful, to shave the surrounding tender areas with a blade and scrub the wound. At times, she wriggled but she never so much as growled and at one point she fell asleep. It was like we could do anything we liked as long as she didn’t have to fend for herself out in the cold and the rain and the stench. The constant sounds of barking, growling and worst of all, whimpering. We managed to give her antibiotic injections, clean the wound and admit her as an inpatient and hopefully they can continue the care. That was our last patient before we left, all of us feeling very conflicted and disturbed. One of the issues that we were investigating was the likelihood that these dogs were being resold into the meat industry, to be rescued again and so in a cycle that allowed the managers to profit.

After we had washed in diluted bleach, we could leave, but our clothes were all thrown together and quarantined. Bringing infection back to the dogs at the park was a huge worry. We had another wonderful family style thai dinner and a few drinks to take the edge off the day. I slept like a baby,

Peace and love, Katie xx

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