The Age, Bangkok 11/4/03: Police save 800 dogs from dinner plates

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*Police save 800 dogs from dinner plates*

Bangkok

November 4, 2003

 

More than 800 dogs destined to be smuggled to Vietnam where they would

be butchered and eaten, have been rescued in a police raid on a farm in

north-eastern Thailand, officials said yesterday. Authorities acting

on a tip-off found the dogs crammed into small metal cages on a farm

in Nakhon Phanom province, department of livestock development

official Apai Suthisung said. " The dogs were caught all over

north-eastern provinces and were to

be traded in exchange for consumer products like plastic tubs, " he told

AFP. Six people were arrested in the raid and charged with smuggling

animals out of the country, which carries a maximum two-year jail

term and a fine of 40,000 baht (about $A1,420). Licensed dog

breeders can sell the creatures, but smuggling them across Thai

borders is illegal, Apai said. The dogs, many of which appeared

well-groomed and in healthy condition, were to be ferried across the

Mekong river to Laos before their journey to Vietnam where they would

be sold for 300 to 400 baht ($A10.60 to $A14.20) each. Dog eating has

come under fire in places like South Korea, but the practice has gone

unchallenged in Vietnam. The communist country has no animal welfare

organisations and no laws to protect animals from cruelty, and the

practice enjoys runaway popularity in the country's north including

the capital Hanoi, where streets in some neighbourhoods are lined

with dogmeat restaurants. Apai said the hundreds of rescued dogs

would be taken to their new home at a Thai livestock checkpoint in

Nakhon Phanom, adding that the station was already soliciting

contributions to help to fed them

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