Oh man, have I dreaded writing this post. Not even because of the backlash it will likely cause, but because of the research I knew I’d have to do. I don’t like looking at photos of dead and tortured dogs any more than the next person. But articles containing the most relevant information about the dog meat trade are all illustrated with gruesome photos, most likely to help convey the urgency of this problem, because the normal human imagination isn’t wired to conjure up this level of horror without some sort of visual aid.

Most citizens of progressive, First World nations hear “dog meat trade” and immediately make a comparison to modern livestock slaughterhouses, which are bad enough in their own right. However, that’s not even remotely accurate about the dog meat trade. Most who engage in that commerce believe that torturing the animals before death makes the meat taste better, much the way certain cultures believe (and rightly so,) that a high quality diet with music playing in the background at mealtime--sometimes accompanied with beer and massage--gives Kobe beef a finer quality. The truth about the dog meat trade is far worse than most civilized humans can bear to entertain. And that’s what I want to talk about in this post. Not the consumption of the meat specifically, but the inhumane and monstrous treatment of these animals by people who then have the nerve to demand fair treatment in a global economy.

A recent announcement that Steemfest 4 will be held in Bangkok, Thailand, has caused some consternation for me. While Thailand has cooperated with humane groups like the Soi Dog Foundation to criminalize the dog meat trade within their borders, the brutal practice of smuggling live dogs into neighboring countries is still rampant. In certain areas, the black market trade for meat and tanned dog skin is a booming industry. By their own admission, Thai police are not equipped to deal with seized animals even if they make arrests, and there is not enough border patrol by far to enforce the meager laws that do exist.

I wouldn’t want to see Thailand’s legislative willingness to evolve penalized by a widespread tourism boycott, but the truth is that the dog meat trade flourishes because the demand for this “delicacy” is so great, and profitable, and there are so few Thai resources to enforce any bans. Despite a presumptive national stance against the dog meat trade, Thailand is still very much at the epicenter of this horrific commerce and is the supplier of hundreds of thousands of live dogs to several neighboring countries every year.

Go ahead and blast me if you think I’m being politically insensitive, stereotyping, or just plain wrong. But first, I want you to understand why I would take such a harsh and judgmental stance against Thailand. I’ve spent the last five years immersed in a U.S. subculture that has been desensitized over several generations when it comes to animals. I’ve seen firsthand the social decay, backward thinking, child abuse/neglect, and disregard for human life that goes hand in glove with a group of people that doesn’t recognize cruelty toward animals as an atrocity in an ethical, moral, and legal sense. Amplify this pattern with psychopathic levels of deliberate torture against living, breathing creatures, and I see only one frightening and violent outcome for any humans having contact with that culture.

In case you haven’t clicked on the video links yet, dogs fated for consumption are housed virtually on top of each other in tiny cages, brutally force fed to increase body weight, clubbed to death, and sometimes skinned or boiled alive. Treatment of them is unspeakably vicious. It’s unconscionable. I can’t imagine the psyche of the people who routinely inflict this level of torture on living beings, nor do I particularly want to be in proximity of those people during Steemfest.

Ostensibly, major cities like Bangkok are now considered industrialized and modern. Many people in Thailand own pets, especially dogs. But in remote rural areas like Ta Rae, the dog meat trade is a way of life. Open fields are littered with dog bones. The smell of decay lingers around abandoned buildings used to kill, bleed, and prepare the meat of the dead dogs. People buy this meat from street vendors set up in plain sight. Illegal boat loads of dogs traverse the rivers at night and roadway border checkpoints go unmanned.

As for me, I can’t bear the thought of mingling in a city with people who may be--and some probably are--engaged in such an abominable practice. I feel sure I won’t see evidence of it in Bangkok, and I have no plans to travel to Ta Rae. But this is part of the culture in that region of the world. Perhaps not a celebrated part, and recently it's become an illegal part. Nonetheless, it still happens. I haven’t made up my mind definitively about whether or not I will attend Steemfest 4. That will depend on whether or not I can stomach a trip to a nation where the dog meat trade is still an active way of life for so many locals. I would hope that in the future, Steemfest organizers will avoid regions of the world that are still entangled in Third World practices and ways of life, especially if violence and cruelty are rife within their traditions.