Article: Foreign workers eating dog meat

By WANI MUTHIAH

KLANG: Stray puppies are ending up as meals for foreign construction workers keen on reducing their food bills.

Indonesian construction worker Wagang Saring said the high prices of food and the need to send as much money to families back home had forced him and his friends to eat pooches.

“Puppies are the best as their meat is tender,” said the 37-year-old Saring. “The meat gives us energy to work at construction sites. Three puppies will do for five men.”

Saring was approached by The Star at a petrol kiosk in Bukit Tinggi after he was seen hitting a puppy with a piece of wood.

He knocked out the puppy with two blows and carried it back to his kongsi where his friends had already built a fire.

Fellow Indonesian worker Marcel Jeheta, 30, said the large number of stray dogs in Klang provided ample supply of meat.

Jeheta, who comes from Flores Island, said dog meat was a popular source of protein back home.

“Dog meat is widely eaten in Flores Island and we continue the practice in Malaysia,” he said.

A check around the construction site found many dogs, mostly females, that appeared to have littered recently . But there were no puppies in sight.

Cleaner Suriyati Norsalim, 40, from central Jawa, was quick to point out that only some Indonesians ate dog meat.

“Only those from Flores Island, who are not Muslims, and some non-Muslim Bataks (from Sumatra) eat dog meat,” she added.

Vietnamese Nguyen Thi Thu, 25, who works at a factory in Klang, said she noticed her countrymen eating more dog meat recently.

She said dog meat was a popular delicacy in Vietnam.

Animal welfare activist Sabrina Yeap said dog eating was gaining momentum among foreign workers because there was no law against it. “It is not illegal and so no action can be taken against those who do so,” she added.

Yeap, who manages the canine sanctuary Furry Friends Farm, said it was time the Government banned dog eating as it involved inhumane killing methods.

This article was taken from: The Star Online: News: Nation 25 June 2008