A dog slaughterhouse in Yulin, China, shut its doors for good this week, the first beneficiary of a program led by the animal rights groups Vshine Animal Protection Association and Humane World for Animals to help often impoverished dog butchers find new jobs and escape their gruesome livelihoods.
Animal rights workers tossed away the chopping blocks used to kill dogs and rescued the remaining victims of the slaughterhouse on June 7 – nine dogs trapped in cramped quarters previously awaiting their purchase, killing, and eating. The shutdown of the site is part of what the groups described as a legally binding agreement with the owner, who they will now aid in entering a different business – potentially a breakfast restaurant.
Dr. Peter Li and his colleague dispose of the slaughter chopping blocks in Yulin, China, on June 7, 2026 (photo courtesy Humane World for Animals).
Of the rescued dogs, the animal rights activists identified three as “clearly stolen pets” given their identification collars and house pet behavior. In 2020, in a move widely applauded, China removed dogs from the list of animals that citizens could legally own as “livestock,” reclassifying them exclusively as pets in response to the growing popularity of keeping dogs as such.
While the move reflected cultural changes against raising dogs for meat, it also preceded growing rates of pet theft, in which butchers would simply steal dogs that belonged to families and kill them for food. One particularly high-profile case of dog theft for food surfaced in early June, when the owner of Chutou, a popular dog who had amassed 1.5 million followers on the Chinese social media application Douyin, revealed that Chutou had been stolen, sold to a restaurant for $27, and eaten.
Representatives from Humane World for Animals visit dogs at a dog meat slaughterhouse in Yulin, Guangxi, China, on June 3, 2026, prior to their scheduled rescue on June 7. The slaughterhouse closure and dog rescue will be carried out in partnership with VShine Animal Protection Association, as part of Humane World for Animals’ “Models for Change” program to help slaughterhouse and restaurant owners transition to animal-free livelihoods. Here, dogs Baobao and Lian are shown(left to right). (Photo courtesy Humane World for Animals)
Animal Rescue Day, June 7, 2026. The veterinarian is administering a therapeutic injection to Longlong. (Photo courtesy Humane World for Animals)
Animal Rescue Day, June 7, 2026. Rescuing Pingping. (Photo courtesy Humane World for Animals)
Those involved in the shutdown of the slaughterhouse count the anonymous owner as being rescued, as well, as the man described being excited about a new “peaceful life” in a more dignified business.
“I have been killing dogs for almost 20 years. It’s a dirty business and I don’t feel good about it,” the anonymous owner said in comments to the animal rights groups. “Also, as fewer people are eating dog meat these days it’s hard for me to provide for my family. I am relieved to be leaving it behind me and having a more stable living.”
The phenomenon of eating dogs exists throughout Asia – Humane World for Animals estimates that as many as 20 million dogs are eaten annually on the continent – though it has rapidly declined in popularity as people increasingly adopt the animals as pets and move away from the practice. Humane World for Animals has invested in programs in other countries to help transition dog ranchers and butchers away from the industry. In comments to Breitbart News, Wendy Higgins, director of international media for Humane World for Animals, explained that the organization has found that many participating in the dog meat trade feel economically trapped.
“What we have found in South Korea, India, Indonesia and Viet Nam where Humane World for Animals runs its Models for Change livelihood conversion program,” Higgins explained, “is that most people working in the dog and cat meat trade continue to do so because they don’t know how to do anything else and don’t have the support they would need to exit the trade.”
“It’s not unusual to see people living a hand to mouth existence as dog and cat meat vendors or slaughterers for many years, but once they are provided with the financial means to leave and set themselves up in an alternative livelihood, they are only too happy,” she noted.
Dr Peter Li, Humane World for Animals’ China Policy, explained to Breitbart News that, in the case of the Yulin dog slaughterhouse just shut down, the owner not only wanted to escape the trade, but could not subsist off of it alone. Li was in China with the Vshine team to aid in the process of rescuing the dogs remaining at the site.
“The dog slaughterman, like many others in this trade, does odd jobs of manual labor in addition to dog meat, to boost his income,” Dr. Li explained. “In rural Yulin, living standards can be very low and so someone in this work would not need a lot more income to cover their basic needs. … The butcher is in his late 50s and said that his children would never do this job killing dogs for human consumption.”
The first documented shutdown of a dog slaughterhouse through an animal rights program is particularly meaningful in Yulin, given the city’s status as being synonymous with the dog meat trade.
Yulin is home to the annual Yulin Dog Meat and Lychee Festival, which takes place every year beginning on the Summer Solstice. This year, the festival is expected to begin on June 21. While the event was initially created in 2010 as a way of promoting dog consumption for industry profit, local officials and vendors – and, in some cases, Chinese state media – have argued that eating dogs is “traditional” to the city and criticizing the practice is bigotry.
“I don’t agree with eating dog meat. But do we (dog lovers) have the right to ask them to abandon it because we dislike it?” a columnist for the state-run Global Times newspaper asked in 2016, claiming that “eating dog meat is a part of the local culture.”
Despite the attempts to frame condemnation of dog eating as discriminatory, the dog meat festival prompted international outrage throughout much of 2015 and 2016, when celebrities such as Paris Hilton, Simon Cowell, and Ricky Gervais called for an end to the event. Chinese state media claimed, following international criticism, that the festival had been reduced in size and rumors spread in 2019 and 2020 that it had been canceled. The rumors later turned out to be untrue and the festival returned to full scale in 2023, following the waves of coronavirus lockdowns. Reports suggested that “mass police corruption” had contributed to the continued success of the event.
Dr. Li told Breitbart News that the activists have not received any pushback from the Chinese government and do not expect it, given that much of the activity that fuels the Yulin festival is illegal.
“The trade as a whole has been sustained by illegal activities of which the authorities are fully aware. Their lack of enforcement of laws are the root causes of the continuation of the illegal trade,” Dr. Li explained. “Our Chinese partner group will engage directly with the Yulin authorities to explain the livelihood conversion process and how this could be adopted by them as a much needed solution.”
Dr. Li also emphasized that the festival is not sustained by the local popularity of eating dogs – Yulin residents largely reject the practice.
“Modern China is far removed from the dog meat trade which really has no place in today’s society but it will take practical, solutions-focused projects like this to help authorities stamp it out,” he suggested. “If you visit Yulin, it is a bustling modern metropolis totally at odds with this brutal dog meat trade.”
Humane World for Animals published a survey in June 2025, in anticipation of the Dog Meat Festival, finding that the overwhelming majority of Yulin residents were not supportive of the dog meat trade. Nearly 90 percent of respondents, 87.5 percent, said that they “never or rarely” eat dog or cat meat, and 88 percent said that banning consumption of cats and dogs would have “no impact” on their lives.
“The dog and cat meat trade in China is unpopular, often illegal, a danger to public health through the spread of rabies, of limited economic significance and outside of the mainstream food culture,” Julie Sanders, Humane World for Animals’ director of End Dog and Cat Meat campaign, said in a public statement on Monday.
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