Deliver us from evil

The email message read: “Brave activists and No Dogs Left Behind are onthe front lines in and near Yulin working feverishly to intercept this truck of dogs. Please pray for their release to us!”

So I did, and found myself hovering over the words in the prayer, Our Father: “deliver us from evil.” A few times I substituted “them,” directing my prayers to the dogs and cats caught up in the horrific reality of the dog-meat trade in China and other countries in East Asia.

The “Yulin dog-meat festival” began in 2010 in the Chinese province of the same name by dog meat traders trying to boost declining demand. Dogs and cats have been consumed in China and other countries for millennia, but here, the consumption is overwhelming in numbers, violence and cruelty.

It’s estimated that 30 million dogs and 10 million cats are slaughtered and eaten every year, over a third of those in China alone. In this cruel business, animals are stolen from families, scavenged off the streets or bred on dog meat farms, where they live in wire cages until the day they are stuffed into crates on top of one another, often with their muzzles tied shut, to be trucked for hours or days to slaughterhouses, open markets, or festivals. Many die along the way. Those who survive are then yanked from the crates and brutally murdered in front of each other and often in front of spectators before being sold and served up as “meat.”

A few days after receiving the email from NDLB, I was visiting my mom in Ohio for her 90th birthday, and she asked me to bring in her mail. In the small stack of envelopes was a picture of a dog, beaten, bruised and bloodied with a bandage around one leg. The message next to him was a wish spoken by the dog for “no one else to be hurt the way humans have hurt me.”

This dog was not a victim of the dog meat trade in Asia, but of a dogfighting operation right here in America. Inside were a few more images and descriptions of how dogs are brutalized during fights, and how those “not aggressive enough” are often used as bait, hung from trees or tied to trunks as the other dogs attack and slowly kill them. Although I’ve known about both of these travesties for years, somehow in that moment the similarities between them became very clear.

While the numbers may be higher in the dog meat trade, the actions of the humans involved in both are the same. Dog fighters steal people’s pets, scavenge, buy and breed dogs who then live alone in cages or on chains. Fighting dogs are handled only when being trained to kill their fellow beings, receive little or no vet care, and are usually brutally killed when they can no longer fight.

Most people in the U.S. don’t attend dog fights, are appalled by it, and would like to see it end. Likewise, most people in China and East Asia these days actually don’t eat dog or cat meat, are becoming increasingly appalled by the trade, and would like to see it end.

In both situations, local, national and international organizations work tirelessly to rescue victims, educate the public, and enact laws that will help put an end to these travesties — laws that are often tough to enforce, battling high powered entities who benefit from these activities and dealing with overburdened legal systems.

Criminal activities, including drug trafficking, human trafficking, child abuse and gambling coexist in both. Fleshing out and stopping perpetrators is difficult and often dangerous work. Activists who stop trucks illegally transporting dogs to slaughter are sometimes run off the road, shot at or forced into hand-to-hand combat before they or authorities force the traffickers to surrender the dogs.

In APNM’s “Guide for Recognizing and Reporting Animal Cruelty,” we’re warned: “Be very cautious if you suspect dog or cockfighting … Realize that those who take part in dog fighting or cock fighting are not concerned about torturing or killing their animals. Therefore, do not intervene, as they may not be concerned about hurting you.”

Indeed. To do these things a person has to stop feeling compassion, empathy and respect for life. Obviously, this makes them dangerous to others, and sometimes to themselves.

As my 90–year-old mom astutely noted, “You can’t do stuff like that without it affecting you somehow.” More about that, what I learned about laws, and some hopeful progress on both shores in next month’s column.

Thanks for reading and be well.

(Colleen Dougherty is a writer, educator, artist and behavioral health therapist. Her 20-plus years in animal welfare include jobs and volunteer work in veterinary clinics, animal shelters and TNR organizations. She has been a speaker at the New Mexico State Humane Conference and the National LINK Conference in Albuquerque, holds degrees in art and counseling therapy, and graduate certificates in eco psychology and humane education. Her passion is building joyful and respectful relationships between animals, humans, and the Earth. She began writing Paw it Forward in March 2016.)