It was during the Chinese New Year holidays. In Shenzhen, a modern mega-city in southern China, the noise of fireworks and firecrackers continued despite the ban on all pyrotechnic toys as a measure against pollution. Often, deeply rooted Chinese traditions embracing superstitious culture, such as setting off firecrackers to ward off evil spirits, override any official restrictions.
One of the booming businesses in China during these holidays, besides the sale of fireworks, is pet hotels. Many people traveling abroad or returning to their hometowns during the holidays leave their cats and dogs in these centers. Animal caregivers have sometimes campaigned on social media against New Year fireworks because they say they greatly disturb pets.
On January 29, frightened by the fireworks, a dog escaped from one of these pet hotels in Shenzhen. It was his owner, Li, who was on vacation in the Maldives, who posted the news on her Xiaohongshu account, a popular Chinese social network. Four-year-old Yi Yi had disappeared. The dog, agitated by the noise, ran off at a time when the caregivers had left him free in an area that was supposedly fenced off.
In her post on Xiaohongshu, Li offered a generous reward of 50,000 yuan, which is around 6,500 euros, to whoever found her dog. "Yi Yi is the most important member of my family," wrote the owner. A few days later, Li revealed that her dog had been wandering on a highway and had been hit by a car and left on the roadside. "Yi Yi was hit by a car while running home. I regret not being able to protect you. I will always remember you," she concluded.
But the story did not end with Yi Yi's fatal accident. This week, the Chinese newspaper The Paper accessed images captured by highway cameras and verified how, after the accident, two employees of a company dedicated to highway maintenance and surveillance picked up the dog and took it to their offices. There, they cooked the animal, preparing a kind of dog meat stew, and distributed it among eight other coworkers.
As reported by The Paper, both the highway company and the police confirmed that the workers picked up the dog lying on the roadside and then ate it. The company's cook admitted that he helped prepare the meal. The news quickly spread to many other Chinese newspapers and went viral on social media.
"The two workers followed the rules by taking pictures at the scene and uploading them to the company's system. They assumed it was a stray dog and, since it was already dead, they decided to deal with it privately," a statement released by the company, Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Zhuhai Expressway, read. "We deeply regret this incident. The company will take serious action against the inappropriate behavior of the staff involved," they added from the company in another news article from the local newspaper Jimu News.
The dog owner has taken legal action against this company and against the pet hotel in Shenzhen, one of the first cities in China to ban the consumption of dog meat. This happened in 2020, shortly before the Ministry of Agriculture released a list of the 33 species that could be raised in the country for consumption, and for the first time, the dog was not included.
In other words, dogs ceased to be a food item to become, by law, only pets. The ministerial note pointed out that this animal was no longer considered livestock and that its breeding for human consumption was prohibited. Although consumption, as such, is not explicitly banned in most cities in the country.
Animal rights groups applauded a regulation they had been demanding for years. Many organizations believed that this measure would finally remove dog meat from the menu. It is true that, especially in cities, it is difficult to find restaurants serving dog meat. But it is also true that a controversial food festival in Yulin, southern China, where the main dish is dog meat, has been celebrated every year.
Since 2009, in Yulin, hundreds of street stalls with shaved dogs hanging on hooks appear. Animal rights activists say that, in the festival's heyday, when there was less pressure from activists, between 10,000 and 15,000 dogs were annually sacrificed.