Steaming weather is continued fluctuating around 30 degrees in centigrade and it will be the mid dog days in a few days. About this time every year, criticism on dogmeat soup is heated. The people who claims dogmeat should be legalized insist that it should be accepted as our traditional food culture. However, I want the lovers of dogmeat soup to look at the following shocking scene carefully and say if you could indeed call it our culture. Look carefully from now on.

"A dog is eating dogmeat."
"Go ahead and give some, and see if it eats or not. It eats well.
Dogs almost dying - those are handed over."
"Sir, how about buying this one?"

A recreation ground located in Kyongki Province: Restaurants in this place are full of guests in summer. We entered a restaurant that was known to have guests for eating dogmeat, specifically because they could eat specially cooked dogmeat there. The restaurant was raising about 40 dogs, and allowed guests to select dogs themselves. A dog was trying hard to restrain from dragging as if it knew its own fate Employee of the restaurant pulled the rope without hesitation. After about 10 minutes, a man approached the dog and put out his burning cigarette by rubbing it on the dead dog's eye. He was confirming if the dog stopped breathing completely.

Being killed like this, the dog was then scorched with intense flames to remove furs. Everything was done in only 20 minutes since the dog was pulled out of its cage. It was cut into four parts, and put into a boiling caldron piece by piece from tail, head, liver, internal organs, and reproductive organs. This dish is the so called 'whole dog'.

Employee: "Have you seen? Shall I cut? We let you watch and confirm."

Guest even checked if any part was missing. Employee took care of the dogmeat from its head as soon as "whole dog' was served. Employee looked as if he were searching for something out of the dish.
"Is it the brain?" "Yes."

Guests ate the 'whole dog' from head to feet without leaving anything.
"Brain is really good."

Bickering and troublesome dogmeat culture

00 market in Kyongki-Province: We went to a market in Kyongki-Province which is known as handling 30-40f total dogmeat consumed in Korea. How is the dogmeat traded here?

Dogmeat trader: "Take this one. Sir, this dog is wonderful. It is properly aged and it will be enough for five men."

Dog trader was so busy attracting guests' attention.

Among some merchants, a dog trader was bragging of his dog.

Reporter: "Is it a Jindo dog?"
Dog trader: "Yes, it is a Jindo dog."

Dogs traded here were slaughtered by electric shocking device.

Reporter: "Is electricity flowing here?"
Dogmeat trader: "220 volt is flowing."

Reporter: "How long does it take to die?"
Dogmeat trader: "It takes about 2-3 minutes to die. I am not sure if any individual trader has establishment (dog slaughter house) at outskirts of cities though....."

00 City, Kyongki-Province: What is really happening in the dog slaughterhouse? Along with a policeman, we visited a dog slaughterhouse where they were operating an irregular business with the signboard of 'workplace'. There were dogs waiting for slaughter in their cages including dogs being scorched right after killed at the slaughterhouse.

Reporter: "Where do the slaughtered dogs here go?"
Workplace owner: "They go to restaurants, dogmeat soup restaurants."
Reporter: "How many dogs do you kill a day?"
Workplace owner: "Since we have dog days these days, we slaughter around 20-30 dogs."

Dogs cage located in a corner of the slaughterhouse:

Reporter: "Where did you bring these pet dogs?"
Workplace owner: "What do you mean by saying that? People just give us the dogs saying that they cannot abandon them after having raised."

There were about 30 pet dogs of Gold Retrievers, Cocker Spaniels, etc.

Reporter: "Do you mean you don't slaughter pet dogs?"
Workplace owner: "Right. We eat these kinds of dogs. Guests would not take or buy these dogs."
She is the one who flatly denied slaughtering pet dogs.

Later, we could hear shocking news from her.

Policeman: "What do you do with internal organs or spoiled meat?"
Workplace owner: "We boil them again, mix with food, and give to dogs. It is better than throwing away. They prefer eating mixed (with dogs' internal organs) food better than just eating food."

We checked food given to the dogs in the slaughterhouse.

At the moment, the woman was making excuses to the policeman -

Guest: "I want to sell my dog."

Reporter could meet the man who came to sell his own dog.
The dog he was trying to sell was a Pit Bull Terrier, which had been raised by him as a fighting dog and a pet dog. He sold it without any hesitation.

Dogfight businessman: "Even though one hundred pupils may be trained in a boxing gym, all cannot become professional players. They are looking for one player only, we are the same. I don't regret selling this away, nor I am attached to it."

Reporter: "Then, do you eat the meat too?"
Dogfight businessman: "I like it too."

The woman started to excuse herself after she was caught at the scene when she was turning over the pet dogs as edible dogs."

Workplace owner: "If dogs are raised prettily, they are pet dogs; if raised as edible dogs, they become edible dogs. Dogs are not completely divided. Just like a Tosar can become a pet dog, and somebody treats a snake as a pet, so there is no such distinctive rule."

Shocking facts of trading pet dogs as edible dogs

News staff was able to catch a scene that pet dogs were being turned over as edible dogs in a conventional market in Seoul City.

We were able to find pet dogs easily in a market alley that was full of dog-soju and dogmeat soup restaurants.

Reporter: "Are these edible dogs?"
Dogmeat trader: "They may go to dogmeat soup restaurants or can be sold to individuals at retail."
Reporter: "Small one there, is it a Shih Tzu? How much is it?"
Dogmeat trader: "Give me just about 50,000 Won."
Reporter: "If it costs 50,000 Won, does it weigh 10 kun (=6Kg)?"
Dogmeat trader: "Yeah."

Price is determined by weight and not by the breed. More surprising fact was that tens of pet dogs loaded on a truck were moved to somewhere. They were all Cocker spaniels.

Reporter: "Are these not pet dogs?"
Dog carrier: "No, they are not pet dogs."
Though the carrier was denying, it was open to public that pet dogs were traded there.

Dogmeat trader: "The man told me that Cocker spaniels are delicious and asked me to buy at a cheap price."
Dogmeat trader: "Because they are pet dogs, they are given free of charge by pet dog centers. Pet dog centers give away dying dogs free of charge."

00-District, Kyongki-Province:
How edible dogs in the farms are raised and traded?
A farm known as providing dogmeat to nearby dogmeat soup restaurants.
About 200 adult dogs are raised here. Passing through the dog cages, a warehouse that looked like a dog slaughters in a recess of the farm caught our eyes.

There was a pulley possibly used in hanging dogs by the neck.

Dog farm owner: "Since this is not a breeding farm, we don't kill by electricity."
Reporter: "Then, do you strike dogs to death?"
Dog farm owner: "We hang dogs by the neck, and then scorches after being killed. We have to use traditional methods, not electricity or other method."
A traditional dog-slaughtering scene received from an informant. This happened in a slaughterhouse located in Yonkok, Kyongki-Province.

Signs of dog's pain, writhing just before dying remained as it was. Not realizing what was approaching to itself in a moment, a white dog was greeting to human beings wagging its tails. The white dog could not resist over 10 minutes wriggling to live.

News staffs with policemen entered a farm known as cruelly slaughtering dogs.

Policeman: "It was reported that you are slaughtering dogs here."
Dog farm owner: "Slaughtering dogs? Why should we slaughter dogs? We are just raising."

A secret slaughterhouse was located in an inside corner.

Policeman: "What do you do there?"
Dog farm owner: "I prepared it to use whenever I need it."

The old man who told us that dogs were slaughtered by hanging them by the necks started changing his words upon unexpected visit by policemen.

Dog farm owner: "Killing dogs... Well, I wanted to use when necessary..."

Policeman: "This rope looks like being used for hanging dogs' necks.

Dog farm owner: "Oh, no ~ no."

There were many memo slips attached on dog cages. Numbers assumed as dates were written on the slips.

Dog farm owner: "Skin disease is falling out of furs from black skin.
I wrote it because I cannot remember all the dates."

We could find out a lot of dogs here had been sick.

That was not all. Various medicines such as antibiotic medicines, fever remedy, etc., were found in a refrigerator. Tens of syringes revealed that the old man was injecting in person without any veterinarian's prescription.

What is worse, they were using antibiotic medicines as nutrient supplements.

Dog farm owner: "This medicine is used when mother dog doesn't eat after delivery."
However, policemen confessed it was difficult to control incidents related to dog-meat.

Police Sergeant, Chae Jong-oh, Hyonri Area: "Since we have custom of eating a lot of dog-meat, our culture is lenient on slaughtering dogs, therefore, it is somewhat hard to control them."

In a situation that cannot be controlled or tolerated, our concern is that if we eat dogs medicated with excessive antibiotic medicines, it would directly affect human beings.

Director Yi Byong Kon (00 Veterinary Hospital): "As the antibiotic medicines remain in the muscles of dogs, there are great possibilities for human being to eat the antibiotic medicines. Being unaware of, one would have tolerance to the medicine."

Although Animal Protection Law is the only law related to dog meat, the content of it is too broad, and classification into edible dogs or pet dogs is not clear. Even the authority related to dog meat appeals to the public about their difficulties in legalizing or illegalizing dog meat.

Authorities of Food and Drug Administration: "Different from other food, we have a lot of difficulties in controlling the food. From the peculiarity of the dog meat, we feel uneasy and difficult to talk about dog meat freely."

Dogs have been good friends to human beings sometimes, and reliable protector sometimes. Is the life of the animal less significant than the price of a meal? The price of dogmeat soup for a meal is 10,000 Won.

Announcer: "Last March, our government proposed that it would enforce sanitation control and cruel practice of slaughter. The proposal has been suspended due to collision against public opinion that it is in fact legalization of dog meat. However, it seems that irresolute attitude of our government is putting the dog meat in the dead angle for controlling.

Whether prohibit or legalize dog meat, the prolonged issue should be ended for the health of our citizens.

See the Video Here.