Chutou : Why did you eat it ?

There is widespread outrage on Chinese social media following the tragic death of Chutou, an internet-famous border collie with over 1.5 million followers. He was captured while his owner was abroad and sold to a restaurant for just 25 US dollars to be eaten.

This sordid incident, which occurred in central China, has prompted the dog’s owner to file a lawsuit seeking justice. However, legal experts emphasize the complexity of such a process due to a persistent legal vacuum, as the country still lacks a national law explicitly prohibiting the consumption of dog meat.

However, the tragedy occurs in a context of profound evolution of public opinion and regulatory tightening initiated in recent years, marked in particular by the historic removal of dogs from the official catalogue of farm animals in 2020 to reclassify them as companion animals, as well as by the strict local bans on the consumption of cat and dog meat already applied in avant-garde metropolises like Shenzhen and Zhuhai.