China: Kill your dog or we will, government warns

Dog ownership has boomed in the wake of the one-child policy. Picture: Getty

Even in a country where dog ownership is tightly regulated, the order issued this week by the Dayang New District in the eastern city of Jinan is extreme.

“No person is permitted to keep a dog of any kind,” said the notice posted on gateposts around the community of mostly high-rise apartment blocks.

“Deal with it on your own, or else the committee will organise people to enter your home and club the dog to death right there.”

Regional governments have killed stray animals before, but Dayang’s order also covers dogs that have been registered and vaccinated.

“The rule is aimed at preventing stray dogs from hurting residents,” a district officer said.

Culls often follow outbreaks of rabies, a disease that kills about 2,000 Chinese each year, but the order cites only the maintenance of environmental hygiene and “everyone’s normal lives” as reasons.

People who answered calls yesterday at the district government office said that no one was available to discuss the matter.

However, an unidentified worker from the Dayang village committee interviewed by a local television station insisted the order was the will of the majority of the district’s more than 1,000 residents.

“Dogs are always defecating all over the place and bothering people,” the man said.

“A lot of people were complaining so we wrote a public notice to avoid a conflict.”

But a resident surnamed Yang said: “It’s unacceptable. Many residents here keep dogs and have an animal licence.

“They cannot kill my dog and have absolutely no right to storm into my house without permission.”

For many Chinese who are permitted only one child, dogs have become life companions.

Love for dogs has become so strong that several volunteer groups have been stopping lorries carrying captured dogs heading for slaughterhouses in recent years and seizing the animals. The order underscores continuing weaknesses in China’s legal system, particularly when it comes to police powers and private property protections.

It also points to the lack of rules on pets in public, such as leash laws and fines for not cleaning up after them.

While China has laws protecting endangered species, it has yet to pass animal cruelty legislation.

China often appear sharply divided between animal lovers and those who see dogs as a threat to the public.

The keeping of dogs as pets was effectively outlawed during the first decades of the People’s Republic of China.

It was denounced by Communist leaders as a bourgeois affectation and waste of scarce resources.

Over the last 20 years, however, dog ownership has grown exponentially, despite continuing restrictions on large dogs in urban areas.