Republic of Corruption

Original image posted at Swampmaster.org

Dog eat Dog in the Year of the Dog

I was chatting with a co-worker (Fraser) the other day. His wife Joanne’s hobby/calling is saving animals, usually cats. He told me a story about dogs eating dogs in Taichung. Apparently overcrowding and lack of food in Taichung’s dog shelter has caused the imprisoned dogs to eat the bodies of dead dogs. I tried to find out if this was indeed true. I used all known research tools (the internet) and failed to find anything, so I figured it was some kind of Taichung urban myth. Then I opened the Taipei Times today and saw the story on page 2.

A Taichung city councilor and animal rights groups yesterday slammed the Taichung City Government for its inaction over an animal shelter incident earlier this week that involved dogs eating the bodies of other dogs. Dogs kept in the animal shelter in Taichung were found on Sunday to be feeding on the carcasses of other dogs out of hunger, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taichung City Councilor Tseng Chao-jung (曾朝榮) said.

The article goes on to quote Huang Pi-chu (黃璧珠), head of the Taichung Universal Animal Protection Association. She say that Environmental Protection Agency workers in Taichung are under immense pressure to catch stray dogs. They need to catch 45 dogs a day. The dogs are then kept for a week before they are euthanized unless homes are found. So I am guessing that they are all killed. My math skills are rusty but the article says ti works out 1000 dogs a month or 12 000 dogs a year.

Animal rights advocate Chen Chien-chung (陳憲忠) was pissed and said:

if Taichung Mayor Jason Hu (胡志強) couldn't even take care of his city's dogs, a case of "panda-eating-panda" might be next.

This nearly made me spit out my cheerios. It is an awesome line referring to the ongoing Panda gate controversy that has been all over the Taiwan Blogoshpere since Lien Chan put on his kneepads in China last year. The best post on Panda Gate was from the Foreigner in Formosa.

Chen Chien-chung also said:

The dogcatchers just capture every dog they see on the street, even house pets

Well I am glad that my dog didn’t get picked up. Those stray dogs would have made short work of Arthur. He is no match for the vicious Taichung stray dog breed. Shit, he goes to a dog spa once a month. Apparently this isn’t the first time this has happened in Taiwan. Starving dogs tucked into some other dogs in Taipei in 1998. This caused Steven Seagal to come to Taiwan to meet then President Lee. He will be pissed again and is sure to be Out for Justice. Some kind of protest is planned for next Thursday but I don't know any of the details.

Tags: [Taiwan] [Taichung] [animal cruelty] [animal canibalism]