Grilled dog on the menu in Nanning China

I filmed this while traveling China. In China dogs are sometimes kept as meat. You might find this disturbing or even immoral. However if you think about it, this is not so different from how things are in the West where pigs (rabbits, horses, fish etc) are sometimes kept as pets and other times as meat.

What is it that makes a dog's life worth more than that of a pig? Pigs, are intelligent, social, can sense pain, are genetically similar to humans, and some are even cute (the minpigs), yet we dont think twice about eating pork.

I think this is double standards. You can't pick and choose morality like that. Morality should be based on reason, not emotions. So if you are a meat eater, you really dont have much to be upset about over these dogs. You might even try some. After all, you eat animals just like it every day. On the other hand if you are feeling upset about the dogs, the only resonable thing is to stop eating meat alltogether. Thats the only two ways about it. All or nothing.

If you want to leave a comment, please do. But try not to be racist or hateful.

Update: I got a lot of comments, thanks. One new angle is: It is not the killing and eating of the dogs, by itself, that is immoral. Its the betrayal of trust. That would be true if an owner killed and ate his own pet, but thats unlikely. If you raise dogs for meat you wouldn't bother play fetch with it. Just as pigs on farms are not let into the house and cuddled with. If there never was any trust, then there is no betrayal. What about the docile cow? Doest it trust the farmer to feed it and take care of it every day? Then one day, the farmer turns on it and sends it to the slaughter house. Isn't that a betrayal?

Update 2: After many hundreds of comments. Except for a handful of reasonable ones (thanks), they where the ravings of angry racist children. I guess that's youtube for you. I am disabling any further commenting. I'll leave the video though.

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Travel & Events

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• travel
• log