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Evidently Tibetan Mastiffs were all the rage in China during 2013 and now, not so much. It's gotten to the point where they're overstocked and what they're doing now is sickening to say the least. I cannot for the life of me understand how a human could be so cruel to such a wonderful animal.
"Instead, earlier this year Nibble and 20 more unlucky mastiffs found themselves stuffed into metal chicken crates and packed onto a truck with 150 other dogs. If not for a band of Beijing animal rights activists who literally threw themselves in front of the truck, Nibble and the rest would have ended up at a slaughterhouse in northeast China where, at roughly $5 a head, they would have been rendered into hot pot ingredients, imitation leather and the lining for winter gloves."
To make it worse it seems that this is NOT the first time.
During her 25 years in China, Ms. Peng has seen successive waves of dog fads, which invariably begin with speculative breeding and end in mass abandonment. “Ten years ago, it was German shepherds, then golden retrievers, then Dalmatians and then huskies,” she said. “But given the crazy prices we were seeing a few years ago, I never thought I’d see a Tibetan mastiff on the back of a meat truck
Sad, but not surprising, they don't seem to value the lives of animals over in that part of the world very much. It's all about status symbol and it changes like the direction of the wind.
Is this really any different than what happens in this country? Didn't dalmatians become the rage after the 101 Dalmatians movie? Taco Bell made everyone want a chihuahua. Marley and me had it's dog. The puppies are oh so cute until no one takes care of them and don't train them. Then they get dumped or sent to shelters. Shelter euthanization is basically the same as killing them for food.
Is this really any different than what happens in this country? Didn't dalmatians become the rage after the 101 Dalmatians movie? Taco Bell made everyone want a chihuahua. Marley and me had it's dog. The puppies are oh so cute until no one takes care of them and don't train them. Then they get dumped or sent to shelters. Shelter euthanization is basically the same as killing them for food.
Euthanasia is far less cruel, but yes, the end result is the same. Discarded and unwanted animals are real tragedies across the whole world. The Chinese have a less evolved awareness of animals as companion beings because for much of China's history, the people have struggled to survive. If one can't get enough to eat, and famine stalk society like a permanent shadow, how can one ever develop a sense of love and compassion beyond one's own family and kin? Benevolence and kindness come from a full stomach. Chinese pet ownership is skyrocketing and I am pretty sure in about 20 years, there will be far more dog and cat lovers in China than anywhere else in the world put together. This happened to car ownership in just one decade, and it will spread to other luxury things like dogs and cats, and it's already happening in all of the prosperous coastal cities and provinces. There is also a growing animal rights movement in China.
The Chinese have a less evolved awareness of animals as companion beings because for much of China's history, the people have struggled to survive.
Seriously?
There are at least, by my count, 14 distinct breeds of dogs that have originated in China. The Chow Chow, along with the Shar Pei, are considered as being two of the oldest dog breeds in the world tracing their origins as far back as 150 BC. It should also be noted that the number of small breed dogs originally from China hasten to point out that most Chinese breeds like the Shih Tzu, the Pug and the Pekingese were specifically bred to be companion dogs of Chinese royalty and appear in ancient Chinese art work, so to day that the Chinese do not have an "evolved awareness of animals as companions has to be considered an ill-informed example of western chauvinism. So regarding the topic at hand, what is more evolved, rendering euthanized animals into food or just euthanizing animals and throwing them in the dump?
What are they supposed to do with them? Have you ever been to China or India and seen the way some places are overrun with animals? Do you know that 60,000 people die from rabies every year almost entirely because of dogs?
Evidently Tibetan Mastiffs were all the rage in China during 2013 and now, not so much.
The problem of the Tibetan Mastiff is an extreme and sorry case of puppy mills gone amok. The unscrupulous breeders of Tibetan Mastiffs created the pet pyramid scheme of all pet pyramid schemes that the press gladly played along with. Stories abounded in both the Chinese and western media reported stories about the exorbitant prices being paid for the dogs.
I would regularly see on click bait websites stories or list putting the Tibetan Mastiff as being the most expensive dogs in the world, with prices exceeding $2 million dollars. The only problem is that most of these sales were shams with breeders reporting sales that were actually between breeders who connived to artificially inflate the price of the animals.
Unfortunately China's emerging nouveau riche and others along with breeders trying to get into the market, the bubble burst and as is the case with any commodity that experiences a market collapse there is an excess of inventory. And, I'm sorry to say, that is what these animals are, inventory, just as any other domesticated animal the fact that the Chinese render the animals into feed is nothing more than sensationalizing the story at China's underserved expense.
That's happened here, too, when certain breeds are popularized in the entertainment industry. People get bored or don't research the breeds, and they end up at the pound.
As for these poor Tibetan Mastiffs, an even worse fate could await them--they're running out of cats and dogs in China. If you know what I mean.
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