Yes, some people in Asia are still eating millions of dogs and cats every year as a delicacy. Here is what we are doing to stop the suffering.
Through culturally-conscious education and advocacy, we are reducing demand. Through our spay and neuter initiatives, we are reducing supply.
Outreach & Education
Duo Duo Project hosts experiences that foster appreciation and affection for dogs and cats. Our culturally-responsive programs focus on young people and help them see dogs and cats as invaluable companions.
Please help us nurture compassion.
From a doggie cafe to painting contests, our events bring people up close and personal with friendly dogs and cats.
We invite families to poignant movies about companion animals and consistently see that kids of all ages leave thinking about dogs and cats as family, not food.
At our popular Yulin Compassion Center teenagers gather and see dogs in a whole new light. Ge Ge, a dog rescued from a slaughterhouse in 2014, became the heart of the center and showed the whole community that dogs deserve to be respected.
The impact is real. When the Yulin Dog Meat “Festival” began, an estimated 10,000 dogs were killed each year. In recent years, that number has dropped to approximately 3,000.
By instilling compassion in the next generation, our team is shaping a shift in attitudes that will pave the way for a future where no dogs and cats suffer needlessly.
Spay & Neuter Programs
There are no large-scale dog or cat meat farms in China. Most animals being captured and killed for consumption are stolen pets or strays. By addressing the staggering number of stray animals we are addressing the number of victims to the dog and cat meat trade.
Please help us scale up our spay/neuter programs.
To ensure communities throughout China have the assets they need to humanely manage their stray populations, we developed the country’s first Spay and Neuter Training Center. This much-needed facility is already significantly reducing the number of strays.
We have held several spay/neuter sessions in our state of the art operating room. In training sessions for young Chinese veterinarians, we are teaching techniques not widely available in China that reduce pain, recovery time, and complications. We will soon be taking these scalable strategies to other cities.
The Spay and Neuter Training Center is also hosting workshops in animal care, including humane trap-neuter-release methods.
Beyond animal welfare, Duo Duo Project’s spay/neuter programs are addressing threats to public health for humans.
Animal Welfare Advocacy
Duo Duo Project is collaborating with activists, veterinarians, entrepreneurs, and government officials to improve the welfare of dogs and cats throughout China.
Please help us advocate for animals.
When trucks full of dogs and cats bound for the slaughterhouse are intercepted, Duo Duo Project helps activists set up triage and provides medical treatment for these terrified animals. Some of these lucky dogs become Duo Duo Project’s Ambassadors and participate in our “meet-a-real-dog’ events.
We support activists who are working to persuade civic leaders to strengthen and enforce existing animal welfare laws. The Duo Duo Project team is also working towards a nationwide animal welfare law in China.
We collaborated with a local Buddhist temple to help manage stray animals on its grounds. The temple has become a vaccination and trap-neuter-release partner, setting an example for other temples.
We collaborated with local organizations and convinced ELE.me (餓了吗), China’s largest meal delivery platform, to remove all restaurants serving dog meat from its platform.
Yes. The Yulin dog meat festival still happens every year.
Every June, thousands of dogs are taken from the streets or stolen from their families and viciously slaughtered for the Dog Meat "Festival" in Yulin, China. Fortunately, the infamous celebration dating back to 2010 attracts fewer participants every year. Yulin officials have even started organizing alternative cultural events to divert attention from this shameful spectacle.
Our work is working.
We are seeing real progress through all of our programs. And what encourages us most is the way our work resonates with young people across China. One of the things that has fueled this attitude shift is the fact that a whole generation grew up when China had a ‘one-child-per-family’ policy. Not surprisingly, dogs and cats served as invaluable companions and compassion took a stronger hold. Our thanks to all the people in China helping us to light the way.
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