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Volunteers put together to ship dogs home at a “makeshift shelter for animals” on May 17, 2022 in Shanghai, China.
Hong Kong
CNN
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A stunning video of a Rottweiler mauling a 2-year-old lady in China has prompted a crackdown by native authorities on stray dogs that some argue has now gone too far.
Authorities have been initially praised for his or her swift response to the incident, however netizens quickly started sharing accounts of stray canines of their neighborhood being roughly rounded up and, in some circumstances, put down.
The new directive to clamp down on massive, unleashed dogs is being cited because the latest instance of a knee-jerk response by Chinese authorities that additionally highlights the nation’s long-standing battle with animal rights and welfare.
“Just because a large dog bit a child, all of them are being hunted down by ruthless security guards and police,” one consumer wrote on Chinese social media Weibo beneath the hashtag “Will the biting of the girl bring stigma to a large dog?” seen by almost 1 million customers.
“Such a one-size-fits-all approach makes me really sad,” she stated.
Video of the October 16 attack exhibits the lady stepping out of a residential compound along with her mom in Chongzhou, in China’s southwestern province of Sichuan, and instantly being chased and bitten by a big black Rottweiler.
The mom tries to defend her daughter from the canine, however then tries to drag her again because the animal drags the kid round. A cleaner who comes to assist with a brush additionally fails to drive the canine away.
A person lastly succeeds in chasing the Rottweiler away with a picket stick. By that point, the mom is sitting on the bottom, crying, along with her daughter in her arms.
The toddler was admitted to hospital, the place she was handled for a ruptured kidney, fractured ribs and chunk marks on varied elements of her physique, a number of Chinese state media shops reported.
Authorities caught the Rottweiler and detained its proprietor, in accordance with state media.
Since then, native authorities in a raft of provinces together with Shandong, Jiangxi, Yunnan, Hunan, Anhui have stepped up regulation enforcement, some extra heavy-handed than others. Stray dogs are the principle targets, however pets who’re unleashed can be topic to regulate measures.
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A person walks his canine via a mall throughout a 2022 Covid shutdown in Beijing, China.
Most native police stated they’d ramp up patrols to spherical up stray dogs and effective house owners who fail to place their dogs on a leash. More sturdy approaches embrace police in Yanzhou in Shandong vowing to seek out “mad dogs” and euthanize them.
The nation is home to 40 million stray dogs, in accordance with the 2021 China Pet Industry white paper. In the previous, strays have been blamed for rabies outbreaks and authorities have tried to regulate their numbers with culls.
In one case that triggered an outpouring of grief on-line, a small stray canine – referred to as Xiao Huang, or little yellow – was taken away in a web by safety personnel at a college campus in Chongqing and overwhelmed to dying, in accordance with state-affiliated media.
Many netizens have been perplexed by the choice to kill a tiny canine, whose picture is being shared on Weibo with the hashtag “straydogxiaohuang,” with a name for larger rights for stray dogs. The college stated the canine had entered the scholar dormitory, posing a menace to the protection, in accordance with state-affiliated information outlet Beijing Time.
In Shanghai, pictures of cops descending on an area neighborhood and dragging away a German Shepherd additionally sparked fury on-line.
Many netizens consider the canine was old and didn’t pose a hazard to the group. But Shanghai authorities stated they have been performing on complaints from neighbors about an aggressive canine and that it was “taken in and dealt with,” in accordance with a submit on their WeChat account.
This just isn’t the primary time Chinese authorities have been accused of being heavy-handed with animals.
During Covid, some pet house owners complained that their dogs have been overwhelmed to dying after they have been taken away for quarantine, anecdotes that sparked uproar throughout the web.
Quite a few netizens praised the authorities for taking proactive steps, however most warned in opposition to the implications of going overboard.
Celebrities additionally joined the refrain of animal lovers to name for higher understanding.
Chinese actress and singer Cya Liu, who received Best Actress on the Hong Kong Film Awards final 12 months, known as for an finish to the killing.
“Not all stray dogs are bad just as not all men are good,” she wrote on Weibo, with the hashtag “voicing out for stray dogs.”
Bo Ai Animal Protection Centre Of Guangyuan in Sichuan wrote on Tumblr-like Chinese social media Meipian that China ought to be utilizing its growth to instil a greater sense of social accountability and a respect for animals in folks.
“Beating and catching dogs at every turn. Let the world see what our great motherland is like,” it stated.
