Duo Duo Project: A Friend to China’s Dog- and Cat-People, Part 2 of 2

“We want to end the trade from the root. We don't want to just rescue because 10 million dogs are being slaughtered. There're too many to be rescued. And rescued dogs, especially to bring them back to the (United) States, it costs a lot of money. And those funds can save many more dogs if we do more work in China. So, Duo Duo, basically, we’re an advocacy group. We’re an education group. We want to do education. We want to change hearts and minds because otherwise, this cruel practice will never end.”

“We also bring in the ‘adopt, don't buy’ concept. We have brought American vets to China to train local vets. So they learn the newest, less invasive spay and neuter skills to spay and neuter more dogs and cats. And then we have sponsored a lot of TNR (Trap-Neuter-Return) programs in China. TNR programs mostly have been done in the biggest cities like Beijing and Shanghai and Guangzhou. So together, we help local activists to do things. We teach them the concept, and then we also give them the supplies.”

“And also, we need to create this negative stigma attached to the practice of eating dogs and cats. You think about smoking, I always use the (example of the) smoking movement, anti-smoking. When we were young, everybody smoked, right? It was so cool to smoke. And then in only about 20 years, they successfully attached this negative big stigma to smoking. Now people think, ‘Ah, you smoke? That’s bad for your health.’”

Another important facet of Duo Duo’s outreach involves helping women in Yulin to earn money without exploiting and killing our dog friends. “Actually Yulin women are very good with sewing. And they used to sew a lot of jeans. Yulin used to be called the “jean capital of the world.” So, we want to hire as many Yulin women to sew bags, to make bags for us. They don't have to sell dog meat. They can come to our factory, make bags, make more money, and work in the air conditioned place. Because killing dogs is cruel and hard.”