This astonishing story would be incredible if it were not for the photos.
Ted Thornhill reports for the Daily Mail, March 11, 2015, that a man drove his red VW back to his home in Chongqing, central China, only to find a homeless dog lying in the man’s parking spot.
So the man got out of his car and viciously kicked the dog.
But the dog returned later with its also homeless pals.
Together, the dogs proceeded to exact revenge on the man by chewing the bodywork and windscreen wipers of the man’s car, leaving dents and marks.
A neighbor took these photos.
China has no animal cruelty laws, and a person who abuses or injures a dog or another animal can only be prosecuted for damaging property if the animal belongs to somebody. Stray dogs in China are sometimes grabbed off the street and thrown into dog fights or worse — as meat for human consumption.
Bill H.C. Kwok reports for the New Republic, August 27, 2014, that “Every June, the southern Chinese city of Yulin celebrates the summer solstice with a dog-eating festival. Animal-rights activists estimate that around 10,000 dogs are killed every year for the festival, where they’re consumed along with lychees and grain alcohol. Some dogs are strays while others are stolen pets, and breeds range from Dalmatians to Labradors to Tibetan Mastiffs.”
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“The day may come, when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been withholden from them but by the hand of tyranny. The French have already discovered that the blackness of skin is no reason why a human being should be abandoned without redress to the caprice of a tormentor. It may come one day to be recognized, that the number of legs, the villosity of the skin, or the termination of the os sacrum, are reasons equally insufficient for abandoning a sensitive being to the same fate. What else is it that should trace the insuperable line? Is it the faculty of reason, or perhaps, the faculty for discourse?…the question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?” (Jeremy Bentham, 1781)
~Éowyn
