Something wretched this week (actually a continuation of a previous story from last week), and I must warn the squeamish like myself; it is graphic and involves animals. You have been warned.
For context, a side story this week has been the filing of charges against a half-century old man caught somewhere in Irisan butchering a dog. The arrest came when animal rights groups found a video of said man beating the dog to death with a metal implement.
Let us not dwell on the graphic nature of this incident, only that it happened that it was indeed graphic.
I wrote a piece on something similar a long while back. Allow me to quote:
I love dogs, as anyone who knows me can attest. I could personally never stomach the idea of eating dog in this dog-eat-dog world. I prefer my flavors sanitized of the preconceived notion of the betrayal of man’s best friend, of the guilt of eating that which was not bred for slaughter but traditionally raised as a pet, if not an extension of the family.
Were one to serve me food, and tell me it was dog, I would likely only try small amounts of it if I could stomach that much.
But I do know others who would have eaten more willingly. And there lies my confusion. Where lies the line?
For context, I know people that have at some point cooked dog – an avid dog lover as well, of all things, but not in that way – and that I have relatives who have eaten dog regularly at some points.
(I will put a brief disclaimer that I do not know the details of these incidents, long ago in the past, and have no awareness of whether this still occurs.)
I myself have not consumed dog. I am an outsider to this practice twice-removed – not only have I not tried to eat dog (assured as I was that it tastes decent), but I have also no cultural background which would expose me to such a practice. I was born in the lowlands of the NCR and moved residences multiple times before I could truly be raised in any of these cultures, or at least, before I could learn an answer to the simple question of “do I eat dog.”
The extent of my knowledge is that at some point, dog meat was regularly consumed by a subset of the local populace. That’s it. I have no context to work with on this honestly fascinating topic, which brings me to the regular call to action we have been practicing on this bi-weekly column for some time now.
Here, two years removed, I have found a little bit of progression in this line of thinking. While I still do not know where the line lies – where friend becomes food acceptably – I know that the line lies before we resort to brutality and violence. Where we beat dogs to death.
I believe that while we could make cases for acceptable dog-eating with cultural context, surely we need not resort to the barbarism of beating the dog to death instead of a quick one-and-done act of violence. One without pain.
This brings to mind the practice of ikejime, a technique utilized by bespoke fishmongers dealing with high-value fish. With a single, precise stroke, the fish dies immediately; no struggle is needed and no struggle causes the buildup of unwanted chemicals in the muscles. While it may be a tough ask to implement ikejime in the backyard for a dog-feast, surely there are ways that we can emulate this? Surely we need not let the animal suffer pain? A single, quick stroke.
After all, if we cannot agree where the line lies, then surely we can at least agree that it is before a painful execution filled with bruises.
