Dog Meat – What’s So Wrong with Eating Man’s Best Friend?

Before I’d set off for a recent trip to Northern China, I remember my friend pulling me aside at a dinner party, and with that slurred solemnity induced by four shots of vodka, she made me promise her that I would not eat dog meat. Thinking about the various dishes I’d sampled at local restaurants and side streets, I really can’t be sure if I’ve broken my half-hearted vow to her, but I doubt it. Dog meat, according to the Chinese side of my family, has a distinctly pungent taste and aroma. Regarded as ‘the fragrant meat’, it’s been part of a longstanding culinary tradition, known to keep diners warm in the winters and to speed up the metabolism. This however, as expressed by the pleading, wide-eyed horror of my friend, can be very difficult for many of us to stomach. While we suffer no qualms feasting on the flesh of other animals, dogs and cats are simply out of the question. A dog is no gentler than a lamb, smarter than a pig or even more affectionate than a goose (as anyone who has kept a pet goose or chicken that nestles in your lap while you watch the television and follows you keenly around the house would know), so is it really a matter of morality or cultural gap?

Rationally speaking, one might encounter some difficulty deciding why it is essentially more wrong to eat dogs than it is to eat any other creature. Some argue that dogs are bred for their companionship, but this of course is restricted to the West. In countries like China and Korea, dogs are specifically bred to end up on dinner plates. Anti-dog-trade activists claim that it is ‘uncivilised’ to eat dogs, but one can recognise the hypocrisy of this argument, coming from countries where factory-farmed livestock are crammed like sardines into overcrowded pens and blasted with antibiotics to be kept alive until they’re finally ready to be slaughtered. Dogs bred for consumption are kept in no better conditions, but with just as much self-awareness as those creatures routinely slaughtered and served up on the Western dinner table, it is very difficult to understand why treating dogs in this way is any less moral or ‘civilised’. Peter Singer, Australian philosopher and specialist in applied ethics, reasons that all animals are equal and that one cannot reasonably proscribe the eating of certain animals and permit the eating of others based on subjective, moral grounds. This however, is what has been happening in recent years, with the Chinese government allegedly yielding to the pressures of anti-dog-trade activists and Western ideals of ethical eating.

10 year companionship: Man and his goose near
Ijburg in Amsterdam after enjoying a swim in the ocean

During the Beijing Olympics in 2008, official ordered dog meat off the menus at local markets and in the southern province of Guangzhou, where dog meat is widely consumed, vendors were reportedly warned to stop selling dog meat ahead of the Asian Games which will be held later this year. The Chinese government has signalled a willingness to completely ban the sales and consumption of dog meat on a national scale, and harsh penalties are allegedly being considered for individuals and businesses that are found violating this impending law. The move is certainly controversial, with spectators claiming that the ban is tantamount to succumbing to foreign prejudices, and in disregarding the long culinary tradition of consuming dog meat in China, it does appear to be a classic example of cultural imperialism. Despite this, it is only natural for our emotional bias to take precedence over proper reasoning, and once such bans set in, many of us will raise our voices in triumphant cheers while heedlessly stabbing into our Sunday roast.

See also: Bizarre Trends in Pet-Keeping