11-07-2018, 10:02 PM
The city concerned is actually Wenshan in Yunnan province, not Beijing (which is apparently the source of the news). Thank you for drawing attention to this issue, Catherine. I had not read about it before.
This is indeed very, very harsh. How can a dog go so long without any exercise or a place outside to urinate and defecate? Presumably, the poor dogs and their humans will have to walk around their flats fifty times for exercise and use a tray for waste. That will be very hard on them.
In a depressing way, this is almost predictable. The article gives the two most likely reasons for this harsh local law:
1. "Under communist China's founder Mao Zedong, pet ownership was considered a bourgeois affectation....." True, times have changed somewhat, but dogs are still regarded by the older generation as "things" which are either a nuisance or can be used as food. This attitude will, hopefully (perhaps optimistically), die off with time.
2. "Rabies spread by unvaccinated dogs also accounts for a substantial number of the roughly 2,000 deaths from the disease that the World Health Organization counts in China each year." Fear of wild dogs is widespread because of the rabies problem in the country. If China were to invest even a tiny part of its considerable wealth into rabies prevention (mass vaccination), both humans and dogs could benefit.
This is indeed very, very harsh. How can a dog go so long without any exercise or a place outside to urinate and defecate? Presumably, the poor dogs and their humans will have to walk around their flats fifty times for exercise and use a tray for waste. That will be very hard on them.
In a depressing way, this is almost predictable. The article gives the two most likely reasons for this harsh local law:
1. "Under communist China's founder Mao Zedong, pet ownership was considered a bourgeois affectation....." True, times have changed somewhat, but dogs are still regarded by the older generation as "things" which are either a nuisance or can be used as food. This attitude will, hopefully (perhaps optimistically), die off with time.
2. "Rabies spread by unvaccinated dogs also accounts for a substantial number of the roughly 2,000 deaths from the disease that the World Health Organization counts in China each year." Fear of wild dogs is widespread because of the rabies problem in the country. If China were to invest even a tiny part of its considerable wealth into rabies prevention (mass vaccination), both humans and dogs could benefit.
