North Korea: Owners Ordered to Hand Over Pet Dogs Amidst Growing Food Shortages

Kim Jong-un has declared that pet dogs are a symbol of capitalist 'decadence' and ordered that dogs in Pyongyang be rounded up - and owners are fearful that their beloved pets are being used to solve the nation's food shortages.

Dictator Kim announced in July that owning a pet is now against the law, denouncing having a dog at home as 'a tainted trend of bourgeois ideology'.

'Authorities have identified households with pet dogs and are forcing them to give them up or forcefully confiscating them and putting them down', a source told South Korea's Chosun Ilbo newspaper.

A recent UN report stated that as many as 60 percent of North Korea's 25.5 million people are facing 'widespread food shortages' that have been worsened by international sanctions imposed on the regime for its nuclear missile programmes. 

Dog meat has long been considered a delicacy on the Korean Peninsula, although the tradition of eating dogs is gradually fading out in South Korea. 

Still, an estimated 1 million dogs are reared on farms to be consumed every year in the South.

Man's best friend is still a staple on the menu in the North, however, with a number of dedicated dog restaurants in Pyongyang.

 Read the rest here.

Pizza Place Helps Local Shelter Get Dogs Adopted By Putting Their Photos On Pizza Boxes

Story here.

Slain police dog gets memorial service at Greek Orthodox Church

I don't want to disparage the dog, or the undoubtedly sincere grief of his masters. But from an Orthodox perspective this does not sound kosher.

Pit bull roulette

“Pit bull roulette” cost the lives of 38 humans,  plus nearly 13,000 dogs,  5,000 cats,  and more than 20,000 farmed animals in 2017––and,  only two weeks into 2018,  has already killed Happy Hound Hotel boarding kennel worker Laura Williams Ray,  of Ouachita Parish,  Louisiana,  and three-year-old Rylee Marie Dodge,  of Duncan,  Oklahoma,  along with many dozens of animals.

Ray and Dodge were respectively the 10th and 11th humans to die in dog attacks in the 51 days between November 24,  2017 and January 14,  2018,  and were the 9th and 10th humans to be killed by pit bulls.
Overall,  pit bulls accounted for 68% of the human dog attack deaths in 2017,  88% of the human disfigurements,  92% of the dogs killed by other dogs,  94% of the dogs seriously injured by other dogs,  96% of the cats killed by dogs,  and 74% of the farmed animals killed by dogs.

“Pit bull roulette” is the gamble that a pit bull can be safely introduced into proximity to other living beings.

Read the rest here.

One of my mom's standard poodles (she had two at the time) was mauled in an unprovoked attack by a pit bull in a dog park about six years ago. He survived but his injuries were pretty ugly and it took him a while to recover. One of the vets she used to employ when up north would not take pit bulls as regular patients and routinely warned people that they are high risk as pets because they have been bread for aggression and violence.

What pit bull activism says about our culture

Last weekend in Saanich, B.C., a 16-day old baby was mauled by her family’s pit bull-Rottweiler mix on the same day as an elderly man was attacked by two pit bull dogs outside a Langley, B.C. dollar store. News like this is reported, but commentary-wise, dog-related public safety is virtually an orphan topic. Which is why I adopted it.
 
Public-safety regulation is usually linked to what is deemed a critical number of injuries or deaths. Between 1971 and 1980, for example, Ford produced three million Pintos. Due to a peculiarity in the Pinto’s structural design, its fuel tank was prone to puncture in rear-end collisions. Consequently, over Pinto’s 10 years in operation, 26 people died in fires that a better design could have prevented. Ford was forced to retire the model in the interest of public safety.

By coincidence, there are about three million pit bull type dogs in North America today, representing 6% of all breeds. But about 26 people die from pit bull type dogs in the U.S. every year (out of about 40 from all 400 breeds combined). Pit bull type dogs maul, maim, disfigure or dismember hundreds more. By no coincidence, when pit bulls were few in number — 200,00 before 1970, most clustered in marginal districts — dogbite-related fatalities in the general population were freakishly rare. In my youth, when middle-class neighbourhood dogs ran loose, and average families didn’t own fighting dogs, years went by without a single fatality. If pit bull type dogs were cars, they’d be long gone. But unlike car victims, pit bull tragedies don’t arouse public outrage.

Read the rest here.

Dogs Welcome

It's been hot here lately.

A man wrote a letter to a small hotel in a Midwest town he planned to visit on his vacation.

He wrote: "I would very much like to bring my dog with me. He is well-groomed and very well behaved. Would you be willing to permit me to keep him in my room with me at night?"

An immediate reply came from the hotel owner, who wrote: SIR: "I’ve been operating this hotel for many years. In all that time, I’ve never had a dog steal towels, bedclothes, silverware, or pictures off the walls.

I’ve never had to evict a dog in the middle of the night for being drunk and disorderly. And I’ve never had a dog run out on a hotel bill. Yes, indeed, your dog is welcome at my hotel. And, if your dog will vouch for you, you’re welcome to stay here, too."

From here.

Maryland court says pit bulls are inherently dangerous

A new ruling makes it easier for anyone attacked by a pit bull or pit bull mix in Maryland to take legal action against the dog's owner.

The Maryland Court of Appeals ruling declares pit bulls as a breed are "inherently dangerous," and the owner of a pit bull or a cross-bred pit that attacks is strictly liable for damages, as is any landlord who rents to a pit bull owner.

Read the rest here.

A rare victory for common sense in the courts.

Mini-Yorkie stomped to death protecting owner

SAN JOSE -- Police are looking for several men who stomped to death a 4-pound mini-Yorkshire terrier that was trying to protect its owner from an attack in San Jose over the weekend, authorities said.

The dog's owner said he was walking the 6-year-old dog, Shadow, at Winchester Boulevard and Colonial Way about 2 p.m. Saturday when three men approached and asked if he was a gang member.

The owner, a 32-year-old floor installer who asked that his name be withheld for safety reasons, said he had denied gang involvement, but the men attacked him anyway.

The owner said he had tried to run with his dog but tripped, and the men began kicking and hitting him. He heard the small dog barking and trying to protect him.

The men beat him for about a minute. Once they ran off, the man said, he looked at his dog and "just saw a big puddle of blood."

The dog died on the way to a veterinary hospital, he said.

"He wasn't making too many noises, but I could see his eyes and that's when I broke down," he said. "They were still blinking a little bit, but so much blood was leaking out of him. I knew the moment he died in my arms. I heard him take his last breath and just kept thinking, 'There's no way this is happening.' "

Capt. Jay Terrado of the San Jose Animal Care and Services agency said necropsy reports showed that Shadow died of head trauma and suffered injuries "consistent with being stomped and kicked."

Read the rest here.

Scum.