News Forum - Pet peeve: Thai man eats dog in rage after it bit nephew (video)

[Thaiger]

Watchdog Thailand Foundation (WDT) filed a lawsuit against a Thai man in the northern province of Chiang Mai for brutally killing and eating his pet dog in a fit of rage after it bit his seven year old nephew. A WDT representative filed a complaint at Sankampaeng Police Station yesterday, May 1, that the Thai … …

The story Pet peeve: Thai man eats dog in rage after it bit nephew (video) as seen on Thaiger News.

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[LeReynard]

The Thai people actually used to consume dog meat, before Westernising trends set in. Sort of parallel to changes in the Japanese diet and culinary culture in the 19th century. But because Thailand's economy never beat the US at her own game, we don't hear of this history very often, whereas every serious Japanophile knows about 'mountain whale'.

Southeast Asian 'village dogs' were traditionally regarded the same way as domesticated swine, consuming unpalatable or inedible leftovers, off limits to diners, and turning them into protein for man's own consumption. (If this sounds wierd, some native New Worlders farmed dogs for wool.)

[LeReynard]

Whilst I don't support animal cruelty, or eat meat, you have to wonder how eating dog is different, from eating other domesticated mammals. Pigs are smarter than dogs, for example. If you don't eat dog, why eat pork...?

[Fanta]

31 minutes ago, LeReynard said:

If you don't eat dog, why eat pork...?

Dog meat doesn’t taste good. 

[LeReynard]

21 minutes ago, Fanta said:

Dog meat doesn’t taste good. 

It's still a traditional staple, in parts of Asia and Oceania.

[23RD]

45 minutes ago, Fanta said:

Dog meat doesn’t taste good. 

Stay away from the Beef stew specials in Pattaya. 

[Smiler]

The disgust I feel re this story is not whether a pig is more intelligent than a dog or not, it’s because I have had three dogs in my lifetime and everyone of them was a part of the family, they are trusting and loving and I loved each of them unconditionally. Maybe this guy should have spent more time training his dog instead of just owning it. 

[LeReynard]

2 hours ago, Smiler said:

The disgust I feel re this story is not whether a pig is more intelligent than a dog or not, it’s because I have had three dogs in my lifetime and everyone of them was a part of the family, they are trusting and loving and I loved each of them unconditionally. Maybe this guy should have spent more time training his dog instead of just owning it. 

Aye but have you ever had a pet pig? Would you still eat pork?

It's mainly northern peoples have such a close connection with dogs, which passed to the Romans and Persians, whose languages were intrusive and had a northern origin. It's been suggested the European fondness for canines, goes back to the Upper Paleolithic, but the later dogs of Europe, are genetically of more oriental origins, and arrive during the Neolithic.

This did not really export well to, for example, Afro-Caribbeans, who largely shun dogs. Western attitudes to dogs are clearly culture bound. In Islam for example, dogs are considered to be quite unclean.

[Fanta]

34 minutes ago, LeReynard said:

Aye but have you ever had a pet pig? Would you still eat pork?

Humanising animals is a personal choice. Pigs are domesticated for consumption. Dogs for work. 

[LeReynard]

21 minutes ago, Fanta said:

Humanising animals is a personal choice. Pigs are domesticated for consumption. Dogs for work. 

Right, and in Southeast Asia and as far north as Korea, a subset of dogs became meat domesticates. (Northern Chinese ceased this in the neo-Confucian period. And became sentimentalised as pets, maybe imitating Europeans, under the Ming. Japanese ceased this with Buddhism.)

These dogs ate plenty starches from human leftovers, which bulked them up. Also although these Asian to Polynesian canines are often said to be vegetarian, they had free roam and autonomously seized upon rodents and the like. They did not take large prey, either alone or with human companions.

This is surely not the original relationship that led to dog domestication. But the way humans in Europe regard dogs, is also atypical. Arabs and Bantu use dogs for hunting, but they are free roaming or housed outside the house. It is the familiarity and intimacy of Europeans and related peoples with dogs, that is special. Not the practice of hunting with dogs, as you said.

I think an explanation might be seen in Aussie Aboriginals, living where winters or nights are cold. There, dingos were aloof and only semi-domesticated, but they accompanied men in hunting, and women in foraging, an act that disturbed suitable prey such as goannas. Nonetheless, the dingos have another use to the Australians: they would join aboriginal people as live bedding at night time.

Hunting cooperation of the kind seen in Australia, is not unique to that continent. In South America and Central Africa, similar uses of the dog in hunting are common, yet they don't come into human living spaces. The dog is rare among utility domesticates in that regard.