Thai police are ramping up efforts to slow the trafficking of dogs who are being captured and killed for their meat and skin.
They kill the dog by hit[ting] their head or cut[ting] the throat off and then they separate meat and skin. Thailand people say [it’s] very, very good. Technician to take the skin off, very, very beautiful skin.
So good for the dogs?
No, good for the human to feel the nice dog skin.
This is Ross Velton reporting for the New York Times. The dog trade in Thailand has been going on for decades. The dogs are usually strays, taken from the many living on Thailand streets.
Dog skin tastes like pig skin, but it’s not fatty. It’s delicious, that’s why I eat it. Beef or pork can’t compete with dog meat.
But while Praprut Thangthongdee loves eating dogs, he also loves Money, his pet. In most of Thailand dogs are seen more as friends than food. But Tha Rae in North Eastern Thailand has many Vietnamese immigrants. It’s far from the capital Bangkok and butchers sell dog meat without much government interference. Here dog jerky equivalent of about $7 a pound. And now it’s a centre of a growing trade in dog skin. A lot of the skin we know is exported, particularly to Japan for musical instruments, China for the production of golf clubs. It sounds pretty gruesome, but we know the skin from male dog testicles is extremely flexible, has a tacky consistency and apparently makes the best golf clubs.
I want to help dogs. It’s deep down in my heart. I love them. I don’t know how to describe it. It’s a feeling.
These two police officers are a part of Thailand’s new efforts to stop a trade which has been tolerated for a long time. They are under pressure from the country’s pet owners and other groups who think that the dog business is cruel.
We rely on tip-offs. Watchdog Thailand will coordinate with us.
Who is that…
The police, the police who just arrested dog smuggling truck for us and we can rescue eleven dogs today now.
Some dogs aren’t so lucky. They usually end up here in a forest near Tha Rae.
The bones came from dogs that traders from Tha Rae brought from other provinces. They slaughtered the dogs to get the meat. Then they took off the skins started the tanning process.
Illegal tanneries have popped up to turn the dog skins into a leather which can be sold.
This is an old tannery which used to do that work. They would lay the dog skin like this. Then they would scrape the skin like this to get the fat out of the skin.
I lost him in the morning in May. Until now I still dream every night he come back home and now I’m very happy. In my dream I can touch him again.
Takolrat Chumyen thinks Hector was stolen by dog traders. Yod Doi is running a poster campaign giving money to people who report traders, butchers and skinners. Her phone sometimes rings in the middle of the night with a coded message.
Listen, listen, the words from the heaven.
That’s the code to say there’s been another successful operation.
And I just ask, how many? And really say some times two hundred, three hundred or two trucks and then after that I can sleep with a happy time.
