In a pre dawn raid our Philippines team, along with local police, rescued eleven dogs destined for a slaughterhouse to the north of Manila. The dogs, including 2 puppies, were crammed into a wire cage hidden under a tarpaulin in order to escape detection while the dog meat traders collected enough animals to fill their lorry for transport to slaughter.
None of the dogs were in need of emergency care, but all of them were emaciated and very dehydrated, so we of course provided them with a good drink of water before taking them to our shelter situated in Bulacan, a province to the north of Manila.
At the shelter we unloaded the dogs one by one, gave them food and water, which they consumed in record time, after which they all slept like the dead. Notably, all of the dogs were very friendly despite the ordeal they been through, and two of them had collars around their necks, indicating that they were likely pets stolen off the street by the dog meat traders.
Over the coming days we will evaluate the dogs to make sure that they are suitable for rehoming and then begin the process of rehabilitation in the hope that we can find loving homes for them.
Network for Animals has led the fight to eradicate the dog meat trade in the Philippines, a cruel, underground industry implicated in the illegal slaughter of hundreds of thousands of dogs every year, many of them stolen pets.
Philippines lawmakers banned the trade in dogs for meat in 1998 via the Animal Welfare Act and bolstered this legislation with the passage of the Rabies Act in 2007, which upgraded penalties for convicted dog meat traders to include jail time and substantially increased fines as a means of limiting the spread of rabies. In spite of these laws, a lack of enforcement has allowed the commercial dog meat trade to proliferate.
Please make a donation now to support our ongoing enforcement work.
Please sign our petition asking the Philippines president to crack down on the dog meat trade.
