Writing at the SCMP, Anna Fenton confirms what many may have suspected about 'tiger-striped' puppies for sale on the streets of Shanghai and other major Chinese cities: they're dyed to look like that.
Tiger and hundreds of puppies like him are sold every day outside the city’s metro stations, shopping malls and flower markets. They are just regular mutts, taken from their mother at only five weeks old and then dyed with bleach to make them look exotic. They are sold cheaply, maybe RMB200 or 300, depends what buyers are willing to pay, says Lee-Anne Armstrong. She’s the executive director of Second Chance Animal Aid (SCAA), www.scaashanghai.org, one of the city’s few credible animal welfare groups.
Sadly, often Shanghai “rescue” organisations and shelters turn out to be profit-making scams or fronts for the fur and dog and cat meat market. Others are well-meaning hoarders who end up swamped with a thousand or more animals crammed in cages. Such is the enormity of the unwanted animal problem in cities like Shanghai.
Similar reports have been published by Chinese newspapers in the past, but the trade continues, as too many consumers are taken in by the undeniably cute stripy pups.
Unsurprisingly, people selling puppies on the street for a couple hundred yuan a pop don't care too much about safety, so the bleaching process often burns the animals' skin and eyes. This adds to the litany of diseases many of the puppies already suffer from, having been torn from their mothers before they are properly weaned and kept in cramped, unhealthy conditions.
Sellers often pump the dogs full of antibiotics and stimulants to give the impression of vitality to potential buyers who, upon taking their new pet home, often find themselves having bought a sick, dying animal.
SCAA recommends that prospective dog or cat owners adopt rather than buy, as even those fortunate enough to get a healthy animal are supporting a trade which causes needless suffering and distress.
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