Friends who like to eat dog meat should pay attention to the fact that dog meat will be in a gray area at the legal regulatory level in the future. Due to the blockage of legal transportation channels, dog meat destined for various restaurants may be investigated at any time.
In recent years, the controversy surrounding dog meat has never been interrupted. Dog owners want to protect, and the dog meat eating group wants to protect their legitimate rights and interests in eating meat, and the two groups are in trouble.
So behind what specific changes have taken place behind what is and isn't eating?
It's not illegal or legal
From the perspective of eating dog meat, since dogs were removed from the National Catalogue of Livestock and Poultry Genetic Resources in 2020, the space for eating dog meat has been reduced de facto.
Don't underestimate the catalogue issued by the agricultural department, because according to the regulations, all animals in the catalogue such as pigs, cattle and sheep will only be issued by the relevant departments during the transportation and slaughtering process. This certification is a key procedure for the legal entry of all kinds of animal meat to the public table.
Before 2020, dogs were also in the catalogue, which means that they can get quarantine certificates in large-scale transportation and slaughter, just like pigs, cattle and sheep. It is with this that the slaughterhouse can kill the dogs and the dog meat restaurant can operate normally.
With the removal of dogs from the new catalogue, it means that the group of dogs will no longer be managed as livestock. According to last year's public consultation with the Ministry of Agriculture, dogs should be treated as "companion animals" in the future.
In the eyes of animal inspection and quarantine personnel, the dog is not in the catalog, the quarantine certificate cannot be issued, and the next step is that the slaughter of dogs and the transportation of dog meat are equivalent to no legal basis.
For the group of dog meat eaters, this trick is tantamount to taking a salary from the bottom of the kettle. On the surface, the official does not prohibit the public from eating dog meat, but in fact, with the current situation of illegal dog meat trading and sales, it is equivalent to blocking the emergence of dog meat from the source.
In addition, purely from the perspective of consumption, without the inspection and quarantine level, the source of dog meat will be more complicated and risky.
In the past, dog meat could at least be circulated through legal channels, and the quarantine certificate could also ensure the safety of the meat source to a certain extent. However, if this procedure does not exist, the private dog meat trade will definitely exist, but the legal procedural protection will be gone, and the risk of meat source will further increase.
That is to say, once something goes wrong with eating dog meat in the future, the official responsibility is gone, and it is the slaughterer, the transporter, the dog meat restaurant and the dog meat eating group that will be responsible.
In the laws and regulations at the national level, it is a tortuous way to gradually eliminate the dog meat trading market. In some cities, the consumption of dog meat is already banned.
Dog meat hot pot will cease to exist in these two cities
There are a number of dog meat hot pot restaurants in Shenzhen, but business began to decline after the city banned the consumption of dog and cat meat last year.
The relevant regulations were introduced and implemented in May last year, and according to the reporter's visit and investigation, only two or three months later, a dog meat hot pot restaurant in Longgang District, Shenzhen, had more than three or four percent fewer customers than before.
The owner of the store reluctantly told reporters that in the past, when customers came to the store, the first thing they said was to ask if there was any dog meat. Because there was no dog meat, they just left.
With the introduction of the ban in Shenzhen, not only are new customers not coming, but even regular customers will not come to take care of business after learning that the store does not sell dog meat.
Not only Shenzhen, but also Zhuhai, which is separated by a river, has issued a similar ban. The two cities clearly stipulate that pet animals and their products are prohibited from eating.
Although the term "pet animals" here does not explicitly refer to dogs, the relevant regulations separately state that the edible animal meat can only be animals in the National Catalogue of Livestock and Poultry Genetic Resources.
As mentioned at the beginning of the article, the agriculture department has removed dogs from the new catalogue. In addition, cats were not included in this directory in the first place, so local regulations issued by Shenzhen and Zhuhai also banned cats from eating.
Legal professionals have also made it clear that with the bans in both cities, it means that it is illegal to eat dog meat in Shenzhen and Zhuhai.
Of course, it's another thing to go unpunished for eating it privately, but for the owners of dog meat hot pot restaurants that openly operate, they are certainly not willing to take the risk of violating the ban.
The owner of a dog meat hot pot restaurant in Longgang District said last year that the next step would be to change the sign and change the dog meat hot pot to mutton hot pot to continue the operation, or to leave Shenzhen and operate in other places where dog meat is allowed.
So, now when you go to Shenzhen or Zhuhai, at least in public, you won't see a sign like a dog meat hot pot restaurant again. But in private, there will definitely be business operators and eaters.
Elsewhere in the country, dog meat is not explicitly banned, but it is no longer legal at the transport and slaughter level under the new catalogue.
The fact is that in the past, even if the dog was in the directory and could issue a legal quarantine certificate, the source and slaughter of the dog were also in the blind spot and gray area of supervision.
There are no farms and no meat dogs
People have heard this statement, and the vast majority of dog meat on the market that is eaten is poisoned by dog dealers. The truth of this statement cannot be verified, but there are indeed dog stealing groups in various places.
Since you want to eat dog meat, why can't dogs be raised on a large scale like other livestock and poultry? In the view of animal experts, the Xi and economic cost of raising dogs restrict the large-scale breeding of meat dogs.
Compared with domestic animals such as pigs, cattle and sheep, dogs are not suitable for large-scale breeding, because the transmission characteristics of dog diseases are more ferocious than the transmission of other livestock diseases.
This directly pushes up the cost of feeding, so although there is a tradition of eating dog meat in various parts of the mainland for many years, there is no special edible dog breed on the market.
There is no meat source, and all the dogs are basically free-range, and some are stolen or even poisoned. It is worth mentioning that because of the strong Xi of eating dog meat in South China, there are special people here to raise meat dogs.
But it is not known how big the scale is, and whether these meat sources will flow into other markets. Elsewhere, at least, the meat sources of the various dog meat parlors are complex.
For example, in Yanbian, Jilin Province, a reporter interviewed some dog meat restaurants immediately, and the owners of the stores said that the meat was sent directly from the slaughterhouse, and it was not clear where the slaughterhouse got the dogs.
In Pei County, Xuzhou, the owner of a local dog meat restaurant also said that the meat was bought from a slaughterhouse, and that the slaughterhouse dogs may have been collected from other places, but the origin is unclear. And the owner of the store also made it clear that there is no meat dog breeding area in Pei County.
Even the local agricultural department in Xuzhou said that there is no breeding of meat dogs in the local area, and all dog meat is foreign. Since there are no clear provisions in the law of the state, the regulatory level is equivalent to a blank.
99% of dogs are poisoned?
There are no large-scale farms, and many people want to eat dog meat, thus forming a dog stealing industry chain.
More than ten years ago, a case of dog theft was cracked in Changzhou, Jiangsu, and some people reported to the police that a large number of local dogs were poisoned, and some people specially purchased this kind of poisoned dead dogs.
After some investigation, the police quickly arrested two suspects who had bought the dead dogs. These two people not only collect dogs, but also go to various places to steal them in person.
According to the suspect's confession, they basically went out to steal at night, and the targets of the crime were all kinds of earth dogs. The method is also very simple, give the food stained with poison to the dog, and when the dog loses consciousness, it will be stolen smoothly.
The stolen dead dog was finally sold at a price of 3.5 yuan per catty. The local dogs saw that they were almost stealing, and they even went to neighboring counties and cities to steal.
The dogs stolen by the suspect ended up in a small local farmers' market. The butcher said that the sales were very high, and he could sell seventy or eighty pieces a day.
And the butcher is not shy about saying that 99% of the dog meat he sells is poisoned. Only in some high-end restaurants, the guests want to eat live dogs, and the butchers will try to prepare some live dogs to keep and sell.
Although the dogs were all poisoned, the butcher said that as long as the dog's internal organs were removed, it would be fine to eat the meat alone. And the butcher sells a lot of dog meat, and I haven't heard of anything going wrong.
Although the butcher says so, the last link is the restaurant, and some owners are also very cautious and taboo. In Changzhou, a reporter's investigation found that some restaurant owners said they did not dare to sell dog meat, but there was a problem with the poisoned dogs.
Some shop owners said that customers really want to eat, so they can bring their own meat and they will be responsible for making it, so that even if there is a problem with the food, they will not be responsible.
However, it is worth mentioning that in some places, in order to prevent eating problems, poisonous dogs have long been out of fashion, and the way of trapping dogs has been used instead. The dog thief puts a noose around the dog's head, suffocates it and steals it.
(Two dog thieves are caught and hung up for public display)
As for sales, there is no need to worry, you can sell as much dog meat as you want. Dog meat is sold in many farmers' markets in Nanjing, and although there are no signs, private transactions have always existed.
In other words, from stealing the dog to transporting it to slaughtering and finally to the table, the dog becomes dog meat, and the whole process wanders in the gray area of the law.
How to eat dog meat in accordance with the regulations
Legally, it is not illegal to eat dog meat in other places, except in cities like Shenzhen and Zhuhai, which are explicitly prohibited. But the source of dog meat has always been a big problem, both in the past and now.
If the dog is stolen, then the whole process from the source to the mouth is in fact illegal. This may be a secondary issue, and the key problem is that the safety of dog meat cannot be guaranteed due to the gray area of the entire process.
Although nothing has happened to eating dog meat before, it is not a trivial matter once there is a problem with eating it, because the source of meat is an illegal channel, even if you want to defend your rights. So in terms of security, this piece is always a time bomb.
The solution is not nothing, as long as the large-scale breeding of meat dogs can be. However, it is obvious that although it is said that meat dog breeding exists in various places, there has been no real large-scale breeding until now.
Moreover, with the removal of dogs from the National Catalogue of Livestock and Poultry Genetic Resources by the agricultural sector, it is equivalent to locking up the space for meat dog breeding. That is to say, if you want to eat dog meat in the future, it is unlikely that you will want to get a legal source of meat.
If you want to eat dogs legally, there is only one way left in the end. Raise your own dog and then kill it to eat meat, so that whether it is the source or the channel, you can ensure the safety of the meat, and you can also ensure that 100% of the laws and regulations will not be violated.
Essentially, because dog meat cannot be supplied on a large scale, once dog meat is handled in a market-oriented manner, it will inevitably touch a gray area of the law. If someone eats meat, but it is not farmed, then people are forced to steal it and eat it. In the process, risks naturally arise.
epilogue
As for what to do in the future, judging from the current trend, the national level wants to guide people to develop in the direction of not eating dog meat. However, there is no explicit prohibition at the legislative level, so there is nothing wrong with spontaneous eating of dog meat.
But once the next step involves sales and transactions, whether it is national regulations or some local legislation, some links may be regulated.
Therefore, for people who want to eat dog meat, it is safest to slaughter and eat it by themselves, and if you go out to eat, because the meat source and all links are in fact non-compliant, you have to bear the corresponding risks. As for whether dog lovers will oppose it from the level of public opinion, that is another question.
Resources:
"The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs Plans to List Dogs as Companion Animals, Experts: Eating Dog Meat is in a Gray Area" The Paper, April 9, 2020
"The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs Plans to List Dogs as Companion Animals, Experts: Eating Dog Meat is in a Gray Area" Xinmin Weekly, August 12, 2022
"Dog Meat on the Dinner Table in Jiangsu Has Unknown Origin, Dog Stealing Has Formed an Industrial Chain", Yangtze Evening News, December 3, 2010