Officials in China have launched a crackdown on them strays, unregistered and “oversized” dogs. However, the move has been widely criticized after reports of ownerless dogs being rounded up and sometimes euthanized.
The development comes after a vicious Rottweiler attack on a two-year-old girl last week shocked the country, writes the BBC.
The toddler suffered a lacerated kidney, broken ribs and bruises all over his body. According to information, her condition is stable.
Video of the incident shows the child’s mother initially getting between her and the dog, but the Rottweiler moves around the woman and grabs the child.
The mother desperately tries to save her daughter. A cleaner and another worker rush to the scene to help with the rescue, “armed” with a mop and another large piece of wood. Eventually the Rottweiler pulls away.
Its owner has been arrested.
The crackdown sparked by the attack has however been questioned on social media and by pet owners after several shocking stories came to light.
In one case, security guards and a landlord entered an office without the tenant’s permission and killed both of their dogs.
In Liaoning province, a university said it had fired a security guard who brutally killed a dog on campus in recent days.
In another case – which attracted a lot of attention online – a small, stray dog ​​on a university campus in Chongqing was filmed being caught in a net by a dog catcher, before being killed. The dog’s “smiling” appearance sparked a hashtag on social media with the given name #XiaoHuang.
University officials said the dog had chased a student.
Chinese celebrities have also joined the debate on social media, saying the nationwide crackdown is not justified by the initial attack, terrible though it was.
According to its Pet Industry White Paper China of 2021, there are approximately 40 million stray dogs in the country and this has been considered a problem for some time. However, the Rottweiler that attacked the child in Chongzhou, Sichuan province, was not a stray. He was off leash and approached the mother who was taking her child to preschool inside their apartment complex.
The child’s family has launched a campaign to raise money to pay for her treatment. Statements issued by officials in Shandong, Jiangxi and Hubei provinces said captured stray dogs would be killed if no owner could be found for them.
However, the city of Hohhot, in Inner Mongolia, issued its own statement saying the stray dogs would be captured but not killed, to quell a growing outcry against what people called gratuitous animal cruelty.
In some provinces, local governments are handing out free seat belts as a way to combat the problem.
A volunteer dog rescue group in Beijing has issued an urgent notice to its supporters saying that dogs found without documents in the capital will be confiscated. He also told people to be aware of designated dog walking times and advised owners of medium or large dogs – who can – to take them to designated boarding facilities.
Source: News Beast
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