English Caption for “S Korea’s Dangerous Health Food – Inconvenient Truth About Dog Meat 2 of 2”: http://youtu.be/foHCBNllT8w
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Meat Dog Trader:
Simply speaking, we buy pet dogs abandoned by people who are tired of caring for them (these dogs are worthless to their owners) and sell to the slaughterhouses.
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PD Kim:
We went back to the pet dog auction market.
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One year after our original program aired, has the pet dog trade for meat dog disappeared?
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While observing the auction market from distance, we can see various different breeds of pet dogs being delivered into the market.
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Now we have entered inside the market. There are bunch of pet dogs in the cage in this corner. However, when we turned our head and we also notice large meat dogs.
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There are whole bunch of them. In another corner of the market, the auction for the meat dog was in progress.
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Voice of auctioneer:
“Yellow dog, yellow dog! 20,000 won, 30,000 won, 40,000 won, 50,000 won, 60,000 won, 70,000 won, OK! 70,000 won!”
(For your information conversion rate between US Dollar and Korean Won is 1.00 USD=1,157.30 KRW)
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PD Kim:
After the auction, dogs sold are taken out of the cage and the way the dogs are handled is still very violent and inhumane.
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It is so violent that you would not believe that they would be purchased as a pet dogs even though this is a pet dog auction market.
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After the original program has aired a year ago, the difference now is that they are very vigilant about the outsiders who doesn’t appear to have a business to be here.
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Dog auction worker:
What are you doing here?
Undercover team:
We are just looking.
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Dog auction worker:
Yeah? What are you looking at? Let me take a look inside your bag.
Undercover team:
Why do you want to see my bag?
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Dog auction worker:
Let me take a look inside your bag. You look very suspicious.
You don’t seem to be in this business. So we have the right to look inside your bag.
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PD Kim:
After the altercation, we left the auction market and decided to observe the market from the distance.
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We are seeing a man loading many pet dogs and meat dogs into his truck and leaving the auction market. We decided to follow this man.
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After a long drive, the place we arrived at was a dog meat farm.
We went inside the dog meat farm.
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Among the meat dogs we also see many pet dogs.
Could they be breeding pet dogs as meat dogs?
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Undercover team:
Do people eat these pet dogs too?
Dog farmer:
No. These are pet dogs. They are not supplied to the dog meat restaurants.
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However they can be sold to dog liquor places. (dog liquor called “Dog Soju”. Dog is boiled for many hours and made into a thick liquid form.
People believe that “Dog Soju” has medicinal properties and good for their health.). Dogs are dogs! No difference between meat dogs and pet dogs.
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PD Kim:
Pet dogs are either made into dog liquor or eaten as meat?
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In order to verify the facts, we have decided to visit dog farms where majority of these meat dogs comes from.
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A dog farm that breed meat dogs. However even in this place there were pet dogs.
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At the cage at the end of the row, we can see common pet dogs such as Maltese, Schnauzer and Yorkshire Terrier.
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Undercover team:
What is that dog over there?
Dog farmer:
That one is a Maltese and the one at the end is a Schnauzer.
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Among the pet dogs, breeds such as Beagles are relatively big in size and weighs about 20 Keun (Korea’s metric for weighing) and when they are slaughtered you cannot tell their breed. So they are very often sold as meat dogs.
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PD Kim:
How does pet dogs being circulated as meat dogs?
We have decided to visit another dog farm.
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This is a meat dog farm but again in this place we were able to find the pet dogs. Cages for the large meat dogs and the pet dogs are not particularly separated.
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There are pet dogs in the cages but the dog farmer denies that they have pet dog breeds in their farm.
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Dog farmer:
We don’t have pet dogs. They are all for meat.
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We don’t have any pet dog breeds. Having pet dog breed is a walking on thin ice for us. So all the dogs we have are for meat.
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PD Kim:
Even with these pet dogs in their cages, all dog farmers we met denies that they sell pet dogs as meat dogs. Can we really trust what they are claiming?
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Through one of the dog farmers we have met, we were able to find out the details on how the pet dogs are being circulated as meat dogs. He was in the middle of slaughtering a pet dog.
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Dog farmer:
Taste is most important in dog meat.
Mutts (Yellow dog) is not always the best.
People think that Yellow dog is the meat dog but there is no proof that the yellow dog meat quality is the best.
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PD Kim:
However while we were producing this program, we have discovered that the pet dog being sold as meat dogs wasn’t the only issue.
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The way these meat dogs are handled is extremely cruel.
Dogs are thrown into the metal cages like rags and many dogs pressed down into tiny cages is a common practice.
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Unsanitary breeding environment is also a huge problem.
Meat dogs eating rotten restaurant food wastes in dirty cages.
They are exposed to all kinds of disease causing germs.
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So aren’t there problems with the conditions of these dogs being bred in this kind of unsanitary environment?
We have heard a very shocking story from one of the dog farmers.
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Dog farmer:
I can pick up the dogs with skin ailments at a bargain from dog farms.
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PD Kim:
Several dog farmers testified to this fact.
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Dog farmer:
Dogs that would otherwise go for about 4,5000 won can be purchased at a bargain for only about 2,000 won if it has some skin problems.
People would think “it’s disgusting” but for us, it’s an easy fix. We can burn the skin off with blowtorch and the skin comes right off. Problem solved.
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Undercover team:
Then doesn’t the people ask why the skin is black?
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Dog farmer:
Underneath the skin there is piece of dirt but if you take that off, no one knows if the dog had the skin diseases or not. There is no signs of diseases any more.
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PD Kim:
It’s unbelievable that dogs with skin problem is sold at a bargain as food.
With a lot of effort we were able to find a dog farm that buys dogs with skin problems and supplies them to dog meat restaurants.
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The dog that farmer showed us had scabies in his skin and the furs were gone in many places in his body. The condition of this dog was extremely desperate.
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Undercover team:
Is there problem selling this dog for meat?
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Dog farmer:
This dog doesn’t have a lot of fat and the quality of meat is very good. When you burn it they all becomes dark so you can’t see the skin problem.
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PD Kim:
While telling us that there is no way we will be caught for selling sick dogs, he injects something into this dog. After about 5 minutes later, the dog starts to shake his body with whatever substance that was injected spread throughout his body.
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The dog farmer immediately begins the slaughtering process.
The first step is to burn the skin off the dogs. This process is important not only for removing his fur but also to hide the skin condition this dog had.
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Undercover team:
Only people like us would take these dogs. Right? Who would want to eat a sick dog like this?
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Dog farmer:
These dog? Well, it gets supplied to many difference places, even the health food places that sells dog liquor. I also supply them to restaurants. After burning off the skin it just looks like a normal dog.
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You cannot see the skin problem anymore. It looks better when it’s burned off. And if you cut them into pieces even if the skin is attached there is no problem because it’s even harder to see.
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PD Kim:
It’s a shocking story that these dogs are sold to restaurants and health food places just as any other dogs. Looking at the dog that is now all processed and ready for distribution, if you were told that this was a black dog you would not be doubting their claim.
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But the more shocking truth is that not only dogs with diseases is being circulated but even the group of dogs died of contagious diseases are also being circulated for meat.
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Dog farmer:
When a whole bunch of dogs die of contagious diseases they are frozen and stored in the freezer.
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Undercover team:
Is there hazards of eating them?
Dog farmer:
No. As long as they are not medicated, there is no risk with eating them.
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Dog farmer:
The dogs that are dead of illness is always frozen.
So if there is a customer order that needs delivery next day then we soak it in running water the night before in order to thaw it.
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The difference in these dogs are that they are already gutted. This is the common practice of dog meat industry.
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PD Kim:
We were eating dog meat as health food. However that dog meat could be from homeless pet dogs or dogs that died of diseases.
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Experts warn that eating these dog meat can be hazardous to our health.
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Medical Dr. Oh:
These dogs are not fed standard diet appropriate for dogs. Therefore, poisonous substances from these dogs can be contagious to humans.
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And when these chemicals accumulated in our body, it can cause very serious health problems.
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Dog meat that is contaminated with germs such as Salmonella is not safe even when you boil or steam it because the germ can survive and cause diseases to humans.
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PD Kim:
Moreover, currently there is no law regulating the industry of dog slaughter so the majority of dog slaughterhouses does not carry proper sanitary equipment.
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The sanitary condition of the majority of slaughterhouses that we have visited were very serious. A swarm of flies are flying around the dead dog lying on the dirty work table.
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On the wall, you can see the splattered stains of blood and bodily fluids from the slaughtering process.
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Dog slaughterers were not wearing proper sanitary uniforms and the dogs were being processed on the dirty cement floor.
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Breeding/farming, slaughtering process, distribution of these dogs are currently not being regulated.
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What is the position of the department in charge of this industry(S. Korean Ministry of Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries)?
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Ministry spokesperson:
In order to resolve this issue, we have previously submitted a proposal to categorize dogs as livestock so that their slaughter can be regulated under the livestock sanitation law
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but there were strong debates between both sides in the congress and also among the citizens with different views on this issue.
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Because of these complicated factors, this problem is not being resolved.
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PD Kim:
It’s been a year since we first aired the program reporting pet dogs being circulated as meat dogs.
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Based on our investigation, since then dog meat industry has become more secretive.
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Pet dogs were still being sold as meat dogs and dogs with skin diseases and dogs died in mass by contagious diseases were also being sold as dog meat.
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Unethical dog meat industry and the shameful indifference by the S. Korean government….
Right now, consumers are eating very dangerous “health food”.
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MC:
Since our last broadcast, we were told a positive news that the trend of pet dogs being consumed as meat dogs has declined.
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However, in some places we were still able to witness pet dogs being slaughtered for their meat.
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Moreover, we found that the dogs near death with terminal illnesses and dogs with skin ailments were being sold at bargain.
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When situation is like this the “health food – Boshintang” you eat can actually hurt your health.
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Passionate debates on whether to categorize dogs as pets or livestock continues on.
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However we cannot just wait for the society to agree on just one position on this issue.
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Sick dogs and pet dogs are being sold as meat and the dogs are being slaughtered in unsanitary conditions. The government should come up with a plan to address this issue soon.
