NGO in Special
Consultative Status with the Economic and Social Council of the United
Nations
Journey in Southern Sichuan November 9th to 13th 2001
Extract from the Journal of an AAPN member
Sunday 11th November 2001
This is the traditional day for dog trading in Zigong. We visited 3 areas of activity - 2 on hills in parks (the main one is Fu Dai Mountain) and 1 in a traditional market (Ding Gan Ba Street). Dogs
were being bought and sold for pets, for guards and for food. There were demonstrations of dog training - attacks on each other and padded people. We also witnessed the servicing (rape) of a mixed
breed bitch by a champion german shepherd dog.
The meat of watch dogs is not considered good to eat. Meat dogs sell for Y100 to 250. (US$1 is approximately Y8). (In New York they sell for US$450 according to a WB11 investigation!) Guard dogs for
much more. There was one dog there that had been purchased from Germany for Y600,000 and had won many watch dog competitions. Importation from Hong Kong is more usual. The dogs are imported
pretrained for guard and police duties and detecting smuggling. "Unfortunately the dogs forget their training after one or two years".
There are guard dog training centres in Chengdu, Nanning, Xian, Beijing and Shenyang. And a Tibetan Mastiff centre in Nanchang. Breeding of guard dogs is officially encouraged. Servicing fees varied
from Y800 to Y5000. A pure bred puppy will sell for more than Y10,000; mixed for 700 - 4,000. Cats were being sold for Y2 - 5. One old man was selling his dog for Y8 because he couldn't afford to
feed either the dog or himself. There are estimated to be 150 million dogs in China.
