Sad

I think I’m somewhat obsessed with calling my dear puppy’s name,”Tun”. I can’t tell how much I miss him and still worry for him too much sometimes. He was snatched by dog thieves not long ago. As I’ve learned quite a lot about snatched dogs’ suffering, especially those on their way to slaughter houses… I would never want to refer to the thieves and many others involving in the crime as “humans”, to be honest.

In VN, sadly, my home country… domestic dog breeds have been facing very high risks of being killed for… dog meat consumption, even though they are normally raised to help watch over houses (unlike livestock). Sadly again, the demands have been on the rise, just like in China, thus the issues of dog thieves have become increasingly problematic. I really don’t get it why dog meat business has boomed in recent years, when there's supposed to be so many people in the country realising how amazing these sentient beings can be. I mean, I kinda expected them to kinda take part in spreading the awareness or at least… keep away from all those dog meat stores. Now I know, I was way too naive. So many people love their pets, and still eat others’ pets at the same time. How ridiculous…

Dogs of foreign breeds seem to be luckier: they have higher chances of surviving because they are thought to be much more costly. More often than not, dog thieves can get a significant amount of money selling snatched foreign dog breeds as pets, then it's not so necessary to send them to slaughter houses. Still, nothing can guarantee their safety. It makes me so angry to think this is a so-called dog-eating-country full of enthusiastic dog-eaters. Some are nearly addicted to dog meat… it sounds funny but it’s not funny at all. They could kill any dog for the meat, as long as they’ve finally got the meat. Now I remember tumbling upon an image of a pregnant Rottweiler chained in a dog meat store, and the story behind it was about some guy paying to save her from being slaughtered. Shit… I really can’t stand it whenever I imagine what could have happened to my dear puppy.

Tun is a 1,5 year-old Dalmatian. He’s playful and naive like a small kid. There’s just too much to talk about Tun. Yesterday, I started to miss him again when we were having dinner in a Thai restaurant. I recalled the memory of the whole family having had a short getaway from the city last year, where my papa drove us to a beach just to spend the whole afternoon idling. It was Tun’s first… and also last trip with his family. A travelling dog – or travelling with a dog – unlike in the West, this type of experience can be seen as quite unusual in VN. For the night, we stayed in a beach resort, and of course Tun slept on the floor, next to my bed. In the next morning, I took him with me to one of the restaurants there, giving him what we had for breakfast. We took him everywhere we went to that time; I was feeling so warm to know that my baby pup was so happy with us. Now I’m sitting here, unable to note down details. I’m just so sad…

I really can’t describe how I love my puppy. My affection for him is simply too much, especially when I feel how my baby needs care and protection from me, like an innocent little child needs his mother’s arms. Em bé ơi… Where are you, dear? We all hope you are still alive and protected by kind-hearted people. And I still hope to see you again someday. 

I extremely hate dog meat business and related crimes, to the extent that I wish people engaging in it to be reaping soon what they’ve been sowing. But I’m conscious enough to see the root of the problem: without people enjoying eating dog meat, the business could not be that thriving. Therefore I believe, to end the suffering of a countless number of dogs, there must be nobody that wants to eat them anymore. In a country like mine? Poverty. Low levels of education. Both connected inextricably, forming a vicious cycle, particularly with terribly corrupted government which takes its toll. Sorry to myself… It’s a long hard road ahead with only fragile hopes.