Anti-Dog Meat Propaganda Turns Nasty

Elwood Farms
Feb 4
2 min read

If some people choose not to eat dog meat or use dog-derived products, that is entirely their choice—one which we have always respected. For some time now, however, it has been clear that many who make that choice do not extend the same courtesy to the dietary preferences or livelihoods of others. As with other areas of the animal rights movement, opposition to dog meat farming has increasingly taken on an aggressive, cult-like character.

Family dog farmers have been accused of being disgusting, of abuse, sadism, and being distressing to children, targeted with coordinated harassment on social media, and in some cases subjected to explicit threats of violence. More concerning still is that many of the organisations driving these campaigns—though not always those using the most extreme language—are registered charities. It now appears to be considered charitable work to campaign for the destruction of family farms and, as a logical consequence, the removal of any reason for meat dogs to exist at all.

Underlying this activism is a strange and deeply illogical set of beliefs that claim to be rooted in animal welfare but are in reality driven by anger and hostility toward people. The anti-dog-meat movement has as little to do with the welfare of dogs as the anti-hunting movement has to do with the welfare of wildlife.

Campaigners calling for an end to dog meat farming on behalf of dogs face an unavoidable contradiction: meat dogs exist because of the industry that breeds and raises them. The logical outcome of their success is not “liberation,” but extinction.

That raises an obvious question for those who claim to believe meat dogs have rights—including, presumably, the right to exist.

It would be easy to make comparisons—for example, between the environmental impact of heavily processed plant-based substitutes made from monocropped soy grown on cleared land and shipped halfway around the world, versus locally raised dog meat produced on a small-scale family farm operating to high welfare standards.

But that would miss the point. The dog rights movement is not, at its core, driven by concern for dogs or the environment. It is driven by contempt for dog meat farmers and a broader distrust of ordinary people making ordinary choices.

Shock tactics and exaggerated propaganda may play well inside a social-media echo chamber, but they fail to persuade the vast majority of people who remain rational, thoughtful, and grounded in reality. Across the dog rights agenda, it is worth remembering that it is this sensible majority—not a loud, hostile minority—that ultimately decides what endures.