Man Eats Man's Best Friend

Slate's Ted Kerasote protests animal cruelty in China
By Caroline Zimmerman,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 24, 2008 1:10 PM CDT
Man Eats Man's Best Friend
Sharpeis were bred as fighting dogs in China, but today the dogs could be destined for the dinner table.    (Shutterstock)

While you're busy worrying about human rights in China, author and journalist Ted Kerasote argues, add animal rights to the list. After a trip to a ski camp in China where he was befriended by a "dead ringer for Lassie," he was appalled to find his canine pal served as the main dish at a feast in his honor.

Chinese cats and dogs are not only eaten; each year 2 million are brutally killed—even skinned alive—for their fur, which is sold on the black market, Kerasote writes for Salon. The practice is more than a cultural difference, he says; it's "deplorable," especially because they're pets, often stolen from families. "It's one more shadow cast by the Olympic flame," he writes. (More pets stories.)

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