Dogs in China Saved from Meat Trade

This is a story about the struggle between the modern and the traditional in China. In eastern China’s Jiangsu Province some young animal lovers stopped a truck crammed full of dogs destined for the meat market. After many hours of negotiation they successful obtained the dogs’ release but had to pay a considerable amount of money to buy the animals from the trader.

They admit that this method is not a sustainable solution to what many are coming to perceive as an immoral practice whilst many others still support the trade and consume the meat. The law is on the side of the latter.

Without the western influence promoting the relatively new attitude to dogs as coveted pets perhaps it may have been possible for Chinese society to effect a more gradual process for changing the dog meat trade. By that I mean first aiming to improve the often very cruel practices, such as the transportation conditions highlighted in this story, whilst still accepting the desire and right of many to consume dog meat. However, the new generation of urban Chinese seem to have jumped over to the western viewpoint in a single leap whereby any consumption of dogs is wrong even if humanely farmed. Thereby, the chances are that this struggle will be a long one and probably increasingly acrimonious.

As the modern urban class where most of the power and influence lies, the dog lovers should eventually win this battle but probably not in my lifetime.

“Biblical” Dog in Trouble

An article in The Washington Post highlights the plight of Israel’s ancient dog “breed”, the Canaan, which is struggling to hang on due to rabies eradication programs, loss of habitat (meaning a change in human lifestyle) and cross-breeding.

There are a mere few hundred estimated to be left in Israel’s wilderness mainly living on the edge of Bedouin camps. However, across the world there are 2-3,000 Canaan dogs being kept as pets. Myrna Shiboleth, who runs Sha’ar Hagai Kennels in Israel, is the one breeder trying to bring fresh blood into the breeding program by getting new dogs from the wild or encouraging the wild Canaans to mate with her stock but she is finding it harder and harder to find any wild ones.

The Canaan’s recognition as a breed only began in the 1930s when a visiting Austrian biologist used them to train as guard dogs for Jewish settlements. However, it’s history as a pariah dog goes back a long way with it being recognized in “1st-century rock carvings in the Sinai” and “skeletons of more than 700 dogs from the 5th century B.C. discovered south of Tel Aviv”. It is also suggested that references to dogs in the bible must have been referring to the Canaan.

Therefore, it actually seems wrong to me to call the Canaan a breed at all. The above article (and elsewhere) is littered with terms that identify the Canaan as a middle-eastern village dog or pariah. Not everyone will agree with this but to me it seems highly probable that it did not come into being through direct human selection as with other breeds but as a consequence of scavenging around human communities as with dogs such as the south-east Asian dingo, and as such is not strictly a “breed”.  To me, the only way to save the Canaan is conserve it in situ because it’s lifestyle is as much a part of it as it’s physical characteristics are but this is particularly difficult in Israel’s restricted space.

The Canaan is Israel’s national dog, which makes my next suggestion difficult, but the remaining wild Canaans are not restricted to political boundaries and looking further afield in neighboring countries would undoubtedly reveal a larger wild population.

It is almost as if we now have two Canaans: the breed dog being kept as pets and the free-ranging original version. An alternative, and to me preferable, approach would be to say that the Canaan is an Israeli breed bred from the middle-eastern pariah dog, and not to use the label at all for the dogs still living the pariah lifestyle.

There is much good, although inconclusive, evidence that dog domestication first occurred in the middle-east, so perhaps an incentive to focus efforts on conserving the free-ranging “Canaan” dogs would be the possibility that these animals represent not only the biblical dog but also the closest relatives we have to the original dogs. 

The Great Indian Dog Show

The Deccan Chronicle has a report about an interesting dog event to be held on 15^th April called “The Great Indian Dog Show”. Its aim is to promote native Indian dogs and mongrels, and to encourage people to adopt strays rather than spend money on pure breeds. In place of the normal breed categories there will be unusual competition categories such as “the waggiest tail” and “the dog that most resembles its owner”. They hope to highlight how mixed breeds and local pariah dogs can make wonderful pets and generally do not suffer inherited genetic ailments like many breeds do.

In the report, one of the organizers also picks up on how free-ranging dogs’ behavior can reflect the treatment they receive from people: “It is a misconception that Indian dogs are dangerous. You always see people hitting them with stones and sticks, so you see why they have learned to be defensive and to bite when provoked.” I certainly believe human aggression has a significant influence on dog aggressive and mentioned it earlier in relation to dog bites in Kashmir (here).

Although I like the idea of this dog show and share the feeling that mongrels have a lot going for them as pets, the one point I disagree with is their “dream” of stray-free streets. It does partly depend on how they are defining a stray but it sounds like they are dreaming of no unowned dogs on their streets at all which to me means no pariah dogs. Pariah dogs are the native Indian village dogs that have lived unowned around people for thousands of years. It would be a mistake to just look at them as outcast mongrels and I really hope they do not turn the Indian pariah dog into just another breed. To me that’s more like a nightmare.

Pregnancy from Dog Bites?

If bitten by a stray dog in many parts of the world it is very advisable to get a rabies jab. In some parts of rural India it is also sensible to see the local faith-healer or otherwise risk having puppies grow inside you. As reported here there is a persistent local belief that dog bites can lead to a person getting pregnant with puppies followed by madness and death.

I do not know the roots of the belief (and have not seen an article published in The Lancet in 2003, unavailable on-line, that apparently covers the phenomenon) but it seems quite possible that this “puppy pregnancy syndrome” may have originated from rabies and acts as a mechanism to encourage people to avoid getting bitten by dogs.

Turkey’s Stray Dogs To Get Better Protection

Turkey’s political parties have pledged unanimous support for a bill to place animal abuse under the Turkish Penal Code (reported here). At present any such cases are treated as mere misdemeanors and offenders normally given a small fine. This reclassification of animal cruelty could mean punishments of 3-year jail terms and should act as a better deterrent.

At present, cruelty to somebody else’s pet does actually already risk harder punishment but because the owner suffered (financial and property loss) not because the animal suffered.

This change is most notably relevant to stray dogs which, as elsewhere in the world, are particularly vulnerable to cruelty and often bear the brunt of misdirected human aggression. It should also deter some of the cruel current measures used by some municipalities to deal with their stray dog populations through, for example, poisoning.

As I wrote in an earlier blog about Istanbul, Turkey has an interesting but chequered historical relationship with its unowned dogs. A quote in the above article touches on this theme: “Historically, Turkey doesn’t have a history of mistreating animals but, ironically, efforts to modernize Turkey came hand-in-hand with the implementation of draconian methods to attempt to control animal populations.”

Leopards, Stray Dogs and Rubbish

If you are concerned about the risks of having leopards living close to your community then, according to a research project in Sanjay Gandhi National Park just north of Mumbai in India, the answer might be to manage your domestic waste more efficiently. They have found that the accumulations of waste attract and support stray dogs which in turn attract leopards who find the dogs relatively easy prey so stick around where they are more likely to come into conflict with people.

Now I am just waiting to hear somebody suggest that leopards are a good way to control stray dogs.