[nagdu] OT Dinner, domesticated or disturbance? Chinese dogs aremultifarious

[Ed and Toni Eames]

>Dinner, domesticated or disturbance? Chinese dogs are multifarious
>
>   By Aileen McCabe
>
>  June 21, 2009 3:01 PM
>
>SHANGHAI —
>
>The Chinese have a supremely ambivalent 
>relationship with dogs. They still like to eat 
>them in winter because it is good for the blood. 
>They also consider them to be pests and cull 
>them on a semi-regular basis. And, recently, a 
>growing number of newly affluent urbanites like 
>to keep cute little puppies as pets. It means 
>that when you see a dog, even in sophisticated 
>Shanghai, it’s not always clear whether you’re 
>looking at dinner, a rabid cur or man’s best friend.
>
>Aside from birds, turtles and fish, keeping pets 
>has never been a Chinese tradition. Even before 
>Mao Zedong’s running dogs of imperialism 
>vilified the species and enriched the political 
>lexicon, China’s canines were primarily hunting 
>dogs and farm dogs — not lapdogs.
>
>Xiao Yumei works in Pet Family grooming salon in 
>Shanghai’s leafy French Concession. When the 
>salon set up shop in 1998, she barely had enough 
>customers to stay open. But each year more and 
>more people began keeping pet dogs and business 
>just kept getting better. By 2006, it was so 
>good a slew of competitors moved into the 
>neighbourhood and cut into her trade, however, and it’s levelled off.
>
>Xiao’s customers are mostly older people with 
>little dogs. "People in this neighbourhood live 
>in old apartments which are not big enough for big dogs," she explains.
>
>Many are grandparents who have spent their 
>retirement raising their single grandchild and 
>for a second time in their lives find themselves empty nesters.
>
>The idea of grooming a dog is new to many of 
>Xiao clients, but they’re taking to it enthusiastically.
>
>"Our service includes showers, clipping and dye 
>jobs," Xiao says. "Our hair dye service is 
>basic, we can’t colour a dog like a panda bear," 
>she laughs. “Usually we just dye a dog’s ears, 
>tail or part of the body. Pink and orange are the favourite colours."
>
>She confides, however, that one client wanted 
>her Schnauzer clipped and primped into a Shih Tzu.
>
>Move the scene away from Xiao’s very smelly dog 
>salon to Hanzhong city, 1,200 plus kilometres 
>away in Shaanxi province, and no longer is the 
>concern whether to dye your dog purple or blue; 
>the worry is where to hide it, and, if that’s not possible, how to kill it.
>
>Claiming 300 people had been bitten by stray 
>dogs recently and that two have died of rabies, 
>officials slaughtered an estimated 36,000 dogs 
>last month. Even licensed pet owners were 
>bluntly told to kill their own pooches or pay 
>the military $18 to do it for them.
>
>Although dog culls were an almost annual event 
>in China from 1949 to 1976, and there were 
>several reports of dog roundups in Beijing prior 
>to last year’s Olympic Games, there hasn’t been 
>news of a slaughter on the scale of the Shaanxi 
>cull in nearly three years — and the flak has 
>been heavy, by Chinese standards.
>
>The central government responded by promising to 
>publish a draft law by the end of the summer 
>outlining its plans to protect animals, 
>including measures prohibiting abusing and 
>abandoning pets. It didn’t mention whether 
>killing dogs for food will be affected, but it is unlikely.
>
>As another one of the dog measures put in place 
>prior to last summer’s Games, dog meat was 
>banned from menus at restaurants around the 
>capital. It wasn’t much of a hardship for 
>anyone, however, since dog stew and other canine 
>delicacies are winter fare for the Chinese and 
>clearly seen as too rich for the blood during a 
>steamy Beijing summer. By the time the weather 
>cooled, the Olympics were a sweet memory and dog meat was back on the table.
>
>There are no realistic figures available on how 
>many pet dogs there are in Shanghai, let alone 
>China. They just don’t exist. Officials cite the 
>number of licenses sold, but since most people 
>don’t buy one, it’s a meaningless statistic.
>
>In many countries, the amount of dog food sold 
>can be a fairly accurate measure of the number 
>of pets, but not in China. The Chinese are still 
>more likely to feed their pooches table scraps than Alpo.
>
>What has become evident, however, is that the 
>number is increasing so rapidly that on a 
>practical level officials are having to work 
>overtime trying to figure out how to deal with the phenomena.
>
>In Guangzhou, on the Pearl River Delta near Hong 
>Kong, for instance, city authorities decided to 
>introduce a one-dog policy beginning July 1. 
>There will be no exceptions, so animal rights 
>activists there are warning that the number of 
>stray dogs will jump significantly later this 
>month as people inevitably turn loose their second favourite pup.
>
>In Shanghai’s middle-class Luwan district, the 
>neighbourhood committee has already experimented 
>— with little success — with things like 
>poop-and-scoop rules and a ban on dog-walking 
>during rush hour, but it remains hopeful and is 
>ready to try even more intrusive measures to 
>deal with the growing number of dogs barking in the night.
>
>The committee is now calling for a public 
>hearing before issuing each dog license. 
>Essentially, the five closest neighbours must 
>agree before any applicant can legally adopt a pooch.
>
>“It is a good way to reduce conflicts caused by 
>pet dogs,” Luwan public security official Chen 
>Mingjun optimistically told the Shanghai Daily.
>
>  Canwest News Service
>
>++++
>
>
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