Animal Welfare In South Korea Is (Hopefully) A Growing Trend

I'll be blunt -- one of the worst things about living in Korea is the lack of awareness surrounding issues of animal welfare.  Obviously debates about dog meat are a thing (IMO it's a bad thing, but relatively minor compared to large-scale factory farming in America) but I'm talking more about the common treatment of pets.  I've seen dogs kept on extremely short leashes for entire weekends, all alone.  I've seen poodles tied by the collar to the door handles of chic cafes, having to stand on their toes just to breathe properly.  And if you think that's bad for the puppers, stray cats are treated with the same level of contempt as rodents here.

Anyhow, things might be changing for the better as "Animal Rights" are a growing concern, especially with younger South Koreans:

"In many cases, the organizations or police are sent away from the abusers’ homes as they remain adamant, arguing for the ownership of their pets. But the organizations persist until they relent.

'Taeyangi’s owner was indignant because he really didn’t think there was anything wrong with abusing his dog, as it is his property,' said Ahn. 'So we had to guide him along a step-by-step process to rationally convince him that what he did was wrong. I asked him, "If I slap you on the face, would that be right? and he said No." So I told him that’s basically what he did to his dog, and that he abused Taeyangi.'

'The number of tips about animal violence are increasing day by day,' said Ahn. 'Based on our experience, the reason behind owners abusing their animals lies in the fact that they resolve their rage upon a weaker being, not because they hate animals.'

The animal rights organizations are all calling for one thing: stricter enforcement of the legal punishments for animal abuse so that abusers will face a degree of punishment that correlates to the level of their cruelty. Moreover, they want the law to become stricter so that people will recognize animals as living beings instead of as their property."

Obviously, this is a trend that I can only hope will continue to grow.