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It's a dog's life
11/07/2001 09:13 - (SA)
Beijing, China - The police car pulled into a Beijing park, sending a girl and her mother rushing to scoop up their black and white puppy into a plastic shopping bag.
"Bring it out, let's have some cooperation," said a burly officer,
swinging open the back of the patrol car where a dozen other dogs
sat in cages. The women handed over the animal with a whimper of
protest and bicycled away.
Beaten, eaten and treated like vermin, dogs in China have never had
it easy. But owners say Beijing, China's tightly policed capital,
is particularly tough. To burnish its bid for the 2008 Olympics,
the city has intensified checks for clandestine canines.
The woman and her daughter's crime was to not have a license.
Because licenses are prohibitively expensive for most residents,
many dog owners simply abandon their confiscated pooches, then buy
another for a fraction the cost of registering.
'No sunshine on dogs' policy
China introduced the Pekinese and other breeds to the world, but
Beijing is, at first glance, dog-free. Unlike in many Western
cities, there's rarely dog poop on its pavements.
Only early in the morning and after 8 pm does the city allow
owners to walk legally registered dogs. Owners call it the "no
sunshine on dogs" policy.
Unlicensed dogs can be seized at any time.
Dog ownership was considered a bourgeois affectation by Mao
Tse-tung's communist revolutionaries and discouraged after they
seized power in 1949. Ownership was tolerated after Mao died in
1976, but Beijing imposed tight restrictions in the 1990s under
then-Mayor Chen Xitong. Chen supposedly hated dogs because he was
bitten as a boy.
Large dogs are banned, although officials don't define how big is
too big. Registering a small dog costs $600, about
half the average annual wage in Beijing, and another $240 each year. Fines are added if the animal was first seized as
an illegal.
The 'little emperors'
For some Chinese, dogs are dinner not pets. Beijing has many dog
meat restaurants and dog is on the menus of many ordinary eateries
too.
But dog ownership is growing among well-heeled Beijingers, perhaps
in part because couples are allowed just one child. Parents tend to
indulge their "little emperors" and older couples look to dogs for
company after their only child leaves home.
Beijing, a city of nearly 14 million people, now has at least 100 000 dogs and owners spend about $2.4 million annually on their canines, the official newspaper China
Daily said.
Illegal street vendors hide puppies inside their jackets, hold them
up by the scruff of the neck for passers-by and sell them for as
little as $12. Most owners whose illegal dogs are
seized simply abandon them and buy new ones, said Wang Liqun, a
critic of Beijing's dog laws who owns six dogs - two registered.
"They've essentially taken away the right of ordinary working
people to keep dogs. It's like they want to annihilate them
altogether," said Wang.
Crackdown ahead of Olympic bid
Special police divisions check dog permits and round up illegals.
Police warned of intensified checks as part of a cleanup of Beijing
for Olympic inspectors who assessed the city's 2008 bid in
February.
"We hope those with dogs without licenses will get rid of them or
quickly obtain registrations," said police notices stuffed into
residential mail boxes.
Police won't comment on crackdowns but defend the city's dog laws
as necessary to "protect the health and safety of the people and
preserve public order and the urban environment."
China's wholly state-run media have suggested that Beijing's dog
rules give it an edge over its rivals for 2008. The International
Olympic Committee picks the host city on July 13.
"It's plain to see that wild dogs and mad dogs have become a
potential drag on Paris' bid to host the Olympics," the official
Liberation Daily newspaper said in a March article headlined: "Wild
dogs, mad dogs run wild in the street. Paris must handle its dogs
before hosting the games."
'They just don't understand'
Fifteen days in a Beijing dog pound left Lady, an unlicensed
Pekinese, near death, malnourished and blind in one eye by
infection, said her owner, Liang Jinfeng.
Liang paid $646 to recover Lady and register her
-nearly five times her and her husband's combined monthly pensions of $134.
"When I got back, the neighbors all said 'You might at least have
got a decent looking one.' They just don't understand," said Liang,
playing with Lady in the small courtyard of her home.
Angry owners demanding their dogs' return have protested outside
police stations. Last year in Beijing, television station employees
protested to demand the resignation of a policeman who killed an
unregistered dog in front of its elderly owner.
Owners have formed informal networks to share information on police
crackdowns and responsible pet care, and sent letters to city
leaders urging more lenient rules.
"It's not that we don't love our country. We do, but the country is
supposed to be moving ahead and in this area simply hasn't done
enough," Liang said. - AP
- SAPA
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