Dog and Cat Meat and Fur Trades Cambodia

The dog and cat meat trade in CAMBODIA (Asia):

Cambodia has no animal protection laws.  (Animal Rescue Cambodia, 2020, Home page)  There are high rates of neglect and abuse against animals in Cambodia and “animals are often considered as a nuisance, as food, or as property.”  (Animal Rescue Cambodia, 2020, The Issues)

Cambodia is considered a high-risk area for rabies from dogs.  (CDC, 2021, High-Risk Countries for Dog Rabies)  Human dog meat consumption in Cambodia is in violation of the Cambodian Law on Animal Health Production.  In spite of this law, approximately 3 million dogs are brutally slaughtered for human consumption in Cambodia each year.  Siem Reap alone has 20 dog meat restaurants, resulting in the estimated slaughter of 35,000 dogs each year to supply meat for the restaurants.  Although some people in Cambodia eat dog meat for supposed health benefits and male virility, there is no scientific proof or any other evidence that validates the common myths that dog meat is healthier than other meats, cures diseases, warms the body, or makes a man “more manly.”  On the contrary, there are large numbers of rabies-infected dogs in the dog meat supply chain in Cambodia, and there are risks from other diseases and maladies, such as Cholera and Trichinosis.  Some dog meat suppliers use poison to catch dogs, and the poison stays in the meat, even after the dog is dead.  (Animal Rescue Cambodia, 2019, Dog meat – the myths and health risks of this cruel practice)

Dog catchers who supply meat for the dog meat industry in Cambodia catch stray dogs and buy other dogs from their owners.  The dogs are transported in cramped cages, with dogs often dying from suffocation, dehydration, starvation, and injury.  The dogs are killed by clubbing them on the head, mass drowning, and strangling, with some dogs struggling to survive for nearly 30 minutes.  (Animal Rescue Cambodia, 2019, Dog meat – the myths and health risks of this cruel practice)  Some dogs are stabbed and others are hung by the neck, gasping for air until they eventually die.  Some butchers slice dog’s throats.  (AFP, 2019, ‘It’s a sin’: Cambodia’s brutal and shadowy dog meat trade)

Some Cambodians kill and eat their own dogs.  They sometimes trade dogs with their neighbors to slaughter and eat.  (Soi Dog, n.d., Dog Meat Trade Cambodia Dogs Killed At Home)

As of 2018, the demand for dog meat in Cambodia is growing and has spread throughout the country, including the capital of Phnom Penh.  New restaurants are opening to meet the demand.  The sale of dog meat is a lucrative business and is more profitable than the sale of beef and pork.  

Some restaurants that sell dog meat have a loyal customer base, and have been operating for a decade or more.  One restaurant owner sells 40 kilograms (approximately 88 pounds) of dog meat a day, mostly to Cambodian, Vietnamese, and Chinese customers, and claims that “some important people also buy it. 

” An activist, who is a medical doctor, found that restaurants that serve dog meat are filthy and riddled with disease.  There are no formal dog meat farms in Cambodia, so dog brokers usually purchase or capture dogs to sell to restaurants.

Some brokers travel around Cambodia to obtain dogs, as well as frequenting areas around the Vietnamese border with Cambodia.  Brokers pay dog owners around $2.25 (US dollars) per kilogram (approximately 2 pounds) of weight.  These brokers can sell around 50 to 60 kilograms (approximately 110 to 132 pounds) of dog meat to restaurants at one time.  The dogs taken for the dog meat trade in Cambodia are treated inhumanely.  Restaurant workers in Siem Reap commonly bludgeon dogs to death.  Activists believe the first course of action to stop the dog meat trade in Cambodia is to map out supply routes used by dog meat brokers, and spay and neuter mass numbers of dogs around particular slaughterhouses to make it hard for suppliers to find dogs.  This will damage dog meat industry profits and hopefully make the industry less viable as a business.  Additional courses of action are to find alternative businesses for people who are in the dog meat industry, and to educate people about the negative health aspects of eating dog meat and about the inhumane treatment of the dogs.  (Board, 2018, Disease, disgust and dollars: Growing demand for dog meat in Cambodia)

In 2003, Phnom Penh city officials encouraged city residents to eat dog meat because it helped reduce the number of stray dogs and provided meat to poor residents.  The governor of Phnom Penh at the time, Kep Chuktema, tried to persuade the opposition, saying “come on, dog meat is so delicious.”  (Mueller, 2015, City Hall Shuts Down Rally Against Consumption of Dog Meat)

Workers on construction sites in Phnom Penh, who are usually very poor, catch and eat dogs and cats.  They usually beat the dogs and cats over the head or drown them.  (Soi Dog, n.d., Dog Meat Trade Cambodia Cats Killed on Construction Sites)

Cambodia supplies many live dogs to the meat trade in Vietnam.  (Asia Canine Protection Alliance, 2020, Dogs are man’s best friend yet they are being cruelly killed for food)