Owner rescues lost dog from slaughterhouse

A local pet owner recovered her Siberian husky from a dog slaughterhouse in Minhang district Sunday, an animal protection activist said Monday.

The unidentified woman, who lost her dog last month, found the slaughterhouse after a fellow resident told her about a place where dogs were butchered near the intersection of Lianhua South and Yindu roads, according to a report in the Shanghai Evening Post.

When she went to the site, the woman found her pet detained with more than 10 other dogs. Two of the animals were suspended from hooks, the report said. She immediately called the police.

The woman told the newspaper that the workers at the slaughterhouse discovered her presence and carried off most of the animals before the police arrived.

The workers refused to return the woman's dog even after police were on scene, according to a member of an animal protection group who witnessed the incident. He asked to be identified only as Gavin.

"The workers called up helpers from two nearby restaurants that serve dog meat. There were about 20 of them," he told the Global Times.

The workers pushed police officers and tried to block them from taking the remaining dogs away, Gavin said.

"The officers eventually had to call in an armed police unit to quell the workers," Gavin said.

Hou Jianhua, a press officer with Minhang police, confirmed that there was a dispute between the slaughterhouse workers and residents Sunday, but refused to provide details.

The woman later got her dog back because it had a microchip imbedded under its skin that proved it was a legally registered pet, Gavin said. She also had a certificate that showed she was the dog's owner.

Police confiscated another husky and a Pomeranian at the site. Gavin said his animal protection group believes those dogs also belong to residents. He noted that there were tranquilizer darts at the slaughterhouse.

Dog meat is served in scattered restaurants around Shanghai. It is especially popular in the winter because the meat is believed to bolster one's constitution.

There is no law prohibiting residents from eating dog, though it is against the law to serve unregulated meat, said Zhang Yi, the former director of the Shanghai Small Animal Protection Association. And there are currently no regulatory standards for dog meat.

Animal protection groups suspect that workers from the slaughterhouse and others like it have been preying on pets in the city to increase their supply of illicit dog meat.

Gavin said his group has recently received more reports about missing dogs. "There must be a connection between the rising number of missing dogs and the dog slaughtering business. The business usually peaks when the weather gets colder and people eat dog out of tradition," he said.

Zhang said that most of the dog meat on the local market comes from stray dogs or pets taken from residents.