Thank you

China’s Barbaric Attitude towards Dogs Must Change July 11, 2015 The furore created by the FCI decision to take their World Dog Show (WDS) to China continues unabated and I am pleased that Norway and Canada have come out strongly against the decision and decided to boycott the WDS when it goes to Shanghai in 2019. I am totally supportive of those countries that are taking a stance against what I can only see as the most stupid decision ever taken by FCI – to go to China. As well as the two countries already deciding to boycott the show it seems that the Finnish KC will decide how to react when it meets next month and there are soundings from other countries as well all of who I hope will take an anti-China stance. Our own KC will not be represented at the 2019 WDS show but in the typical softly, softly and dithery approach of our governing body they ‘are not attending for dog welfare reasons’ i.e. because they do not want to encourage dog entries from long-haul countries. Well that’s all well and good for show dog owners from countries such as the UK that might be considering entering a Shanghai show and subjecting their dogs to horrendous lengthy travel arrangements but what about the welfare of China’s indigenous dog population and the fact that there are no animal rights in the country that is still under the control of a Totalitarian Government. It is typical that our KC that does have respect and power in the dog world never uses it to much effect and whilst I am not particularly a fan of the Canine Alliance I totally applaud their recent condemnation of the KC’s attitude and agree with them that the KC must and should take a far tougher stance not just in condemnation of China’s attitude to dogs but of the FCI decision as well. Having said that I have long thought that we as dog lovers have for far too long turned a blind eye to China’s barbaric attitude to animals but it isn’t just to animals it’s to their people as well. This blind eye attitude may well be what made the FCI decide in the first place to decide to hold the WDS in China thinking that nobody in the UK would mind because we would take our usual attitude, when it comes to the Far East, of ‘if it’s not in our back yard why bother’ and consequently would pay no heed. Condemnation I have long condemned the attitude of China to its people, its dogs and to all other animals and back in 2004 when China was awarded the 2008 Olympics I wrote a number of articles in Breed Club magazines criticising the awarding of such a prestigious event to the country and detailing Chinese atrocities including graphic pictures of dogs crammed into cages awaiting their dreadful fate. I have also written previously on the subject in this column. Most of us in the UK detest the Chinese attitude and many of us, including the KC, made our objections known to them. Over the years I have never heard much from the FCI by way of condemnation of the barbarous actions of China but I did believe that even they were not stupid enough to award a prestigious dog show to them. I cannot believe that the FCI is so naïve that it really does think that by holding their prestigious show in China it will somehow persuade that Country to stop the wholesale mass killing of dogs in the market places of China that take place every week for it is not just at a special dog eating festival that thousands of dogs are cruelly slaughtered. Eating dogs in China is like us eating bacon and there is a large customer base for dog meat. Nor can I accept the recent criticism, of those of us who have rightly protested at the show going to China, made by the President of FCI Asia Pacific Section who insists that ‘a boycott of the World Dog Show in China would play into the hands of those who want to see the demise of dog showing’. This sort of balderdash rather reminds me of the recent rants of a different sport’s President and I cannot believe this FCI President expects us to take his argument seriously. Or maybe he can!! No Change China have had years to introduce animal welfare rights and have constantly chosen to ignore the opinions and cajoling to change their policies towards animals made by a Western Society that in the main believes in animal rights. It is plain stupid to think that the awarding of a dog show will suddenly make the Chinese Totalitarian Political Government sit up, take notice and change their policies. Prior to the 2008 Olympics the Chinese not only chose to forcibly evict the people who resided in or around where the Stadium and Olympic Village was to be but also decided to eradicate the large feral dog population in the area and in the cities. They did this by rounding up the dogs netting them and bludgeoning them to death. One good thing that did come from the Chinese Olympic Games was an amnesty banning the eating of dogs. The Chinese Government introduce the temporary ban because they did not want millions of visitors to see the horrific images of dogs crammed into cages on open sale at their markets and when chosen by prospective gourmets then brutally killed on the spot, skinned ready for the customer to take home and cook. The amnesty during the games stopped the barbaric practise for a few weeks but as soon as the games were finished Chinese normality returned and dog slaughter continued as did bile extraction from Bears, the illegal trade in Rhino horn, Tiger Penis, ivory chop sticks and the inhuman treatment of country folk and farmers forcibly evicted from their land to make way for urban developments. During the course of the Olympics we in the West were presented with a sanitised vision of a China that they wanted us to see and we fell for it in a big way. Back in 2008 China showed how simple it would be for them to ban the eating of dogs and stop the brutality shown to them, they showed how easy it would be to overnight introduce animal welfare rights. For all any Totalitarian Government has to do is to issue an edict and it is instantly obeyed. They had a real chance to do this in 2008 and they chose not to. China deliberately ignored the opportunity to make capital from the 2008 Olympics by making their animal amnesty permanent and instead have allowed their shameful practises to continue unabated for the last seven years. If they could ignore something as huge as the kudos of an Olympics and still continue with the shame of governing a Country without Animal Rights and with severe control over their people what makes the FCI think that its (by comparison to the Olympics) piffling little WDS will make the slightest difference to the Chinese Government’s opinions? I believe that the FCI took a shameful decision when they chose to award their WDS to China and that they grossly underestimated the feeling of dog people and their abhorrence of the practises towards animals and particularly dogs that occur in China. It seems singularly odd to me that the FCI could be so oblivious to the stupidity of taking their WDS to China and the furore this has created. Our inaction over many years to constantly badger modern China into seeing that their attitude to animal rights must change has not been forceful enough and we must now all pressurise the FCI to do a U-turn and take the 2019 WDS elsewhere and make it clear to China that we don’t want them as a part of our game until they introduce animal rights and stop the barbarism involved in the butchery and eating of dogs. Having said that we must not let our fight to stop the WDS going to China overshadow the FCI’s other arrogance and ill-conceived thinking that they have the right to change the country of origin and development of the Tibetan Breeds to China and we must get them to drop this as well. History cannot be re-written on the whim of a body toadying up to a Totalitarian State just because it is a wealthy major world power. In my opinion if the FCI don’t take either or preferably both of these demands then we should consider severing our close relations with them and tell them to go to hell for in reality we don’t need them and really never have. We should certainly refuse to accept any changes to the history or nomenclature of the Tibetan Breeds and our dogs and continue to refer to them as we do now. This is an extract from my ‘Sez Les’ column first published in Our Dogs Newspaper on 10th July 2015.