see also armpit dog
(Based from what I've seen in Korea, so not including rarer breeds such as the Xoloitzcuintle the edible dog of the Aztecs)
Meat dogs or dogs raised for consumption, look different from the regal breeds that most people keep as pets . Universally people don't tend to eat pets. Food dogs tend to be short haired, uniformly golden brown, good natured and around the size of a German shepherd. In markets they are found in packs of 20, crowded into caged pens, often sleeping on top each other. From an unfortunate bloodline they have no passports into honorary personhood and it is likely neither will their offspring -if they have the opportunity to produce any.
Their plight is a fall from an ancestral top-level carnivore with almost no predators to an expensive food item celebrated for its ability to enhance stamina and increase endurance of the humid heat of summer.
A meat dog is often a bit of extra money on the side for farmers, because per pound/kg they are much more valuable than any other domestically raised mammal. For the locals They are an effective way of utilizing meat scraps from restaurants and butchers, the way pigs are used to convert commercial food waste in other countries back into valuable meat.
Ecologically meat dogs become mandatory scavengers filtering calories that would otherwise be lost to landfill /or soil via untethered wild organisms. The calories lost on a trajectory out of our swarming interlocking food system.
Taking the view that life eats life and that dogs, like ourselves are just meat, then eating a dog raised for consumption is no greater ethical issue than that of eating any other animal, once they are stripped of the honorary personhood we bestow on some animals.
personal dilemmia
The ethical issue of humane execution is a small speed bump -major road block -to accepting dogs, or any animals as a food source. Playing with your food is generally considered bad table manners, using a blowtorch and a club1 on conscious animals of any kind -even if they are going to be eaten - is difficult to accept. Is it possible to condone torture and remain compassionate to others, even animals without the passport of honorary personhood? Most of us recognize all animals have visa stamps for thinking, feeling and the capacity to suffer, even in a world made of meat. Dogs, because they are so often the animals we know best as family, underline the arbitrary nature that we divide our friends from our food.
see also armpit dog
Note, dog, the other white meat has extensive information about dog meat in world culture - which by the way, is dark meat like beef, not white like pork. This node on Meat dogs is about meat dogs as a breed in Korea specific from those bred as pets which are mostly armpit dogs.
1Torture increases adrenaline levels in the meat. On consumption, this is said to give some somatic and psychological effects in the diners.
One or both methods of slaughter are verifiability used in Korea and in Vietnam
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