POOCH HAVEN:Animal shelters for homeless dogs are in short supply in China XINHUA

Hao Xiaomao is a truck driver, shipping whatever his employers ask him to from his hometown of Jiaozuo City in central China's Henan Province to northeast China. But one of his recent hauls put him in the center of a nationwide controversy.

On April 15, when he was driving a truck carrying 520 dogs to Changchun, capital of Jilin Province, he was surprised to find that he was stopped by dozens of people at a toll station near Beijing.

The people were volunteers from animal rights groups in Beijing who had made the trip to rescue these dogs, fearing the animals would be killed. After the news was released on micro blogs, several hundred dog lovers joined in. "If we let him go, these dogs will be killed," said a volunteer who only gave his surname as An in his micro blog.  

After 15 hours of negotiation, the dog lovers pooled their resources and came up with 110,000 yuan ($16,949) to buy the dogs. The dogs were eventually shipped to the base of China Small Animal Protection Association after physical checkups.

"I lost 20,000 yuan ($3,081.66) in this haul and lost one of my most important customers too," said Hao. "I'm really surprised to see that so many people are so eager to help dogs."

Changing attitudes

"Actually, we cannot blame Hao and his boss. This action reflects the conflicts among different ways of life of Chinese people," said Dr. Zhang Li who once worked for International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) in an interview with china.com.cn. In China, there are some places where people eat dog meat and China also has many farms that raise dogs only for meat. "Though the number of people eating dogs is declining, we still need to respect their habit; and we also need to respect people's concepts of protecting these small animals."

Owing to the efforts of so many organizations like IFAW in improving people's awareness of safeguarding the basic rights of animals, more and more Chinese, especially those in cities, have changed their attitudes toward animals.

Liu Xiaorong of Zhengzhou City in Henan Province is one of them. Starting 1994, she has been raising homeless dogs. In order to have a bigger home for these dogs, she sold her apartment in Luoyang City and rented a house with a big yard in suburban Zhengzhou. Now, she looks after more than 300 dogs.

"I am really happy to see that so many people voluntarily stood up to help these dogs out of the danger," Hua Ning, Campaign Manager of IFAW, told ChinAfrica.

She described pets like dogs and cats as people's companion animals that cannot be killed or eaten randomly. According to her, dogs are tamed to be companions, not to provide meat like ox and goats. "How can you, on the one hand, confess your love for dogs, and on the other hand, put their meat on the table?"

People's attitudes toward pets can also be seen from the changes of their diet in recent years.

"Decades ago, Chinese people could easily find dog meat restaurants among beef and mutton restaurants. But today, the number of dog meat restaurants in Beijing has dropped dramatically," said Hua.

One of the most influential organizations promoting animal welfare in the world, IFAW was established in 1969 in the United States and set up a branch in China in 1993. Over the past years in China, the fund has launched a series of projects like helping pets, rescuing birds of prey and educating tourists not to buy products of wild animals from African countries.

Homeless pets

"The number of homeless pets in China is increasing, which reminds us of an important issue: You must be responsible for the pet you raise," said Hua.

Experts estimate that the number of pets in China had reached 100 million. In Beijing alone, the figure has exceeded 1 million. According to conservative estimates of Lu Di, Chairwoman of China Small Animal Protection Association, the number of homeless dogs in Beijing exceeds 300,000.

"Actually, it is very difficult to estimate homeless pets. Some people don't register their pets," said Hua.

The increase of homeless pets has placed a big burden on animal shelters. Almost all the non-governmental organizations for homeless pet rescue are overcrowded with pets and facing the difficulties of insufficient funds. According to Chang Jiwen, a law professor of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, China has at least 10,000 such organizations, but most of them are small in scale.