Updated on 13 October 2026. The original 2007 post is kept below.
Dog meat in Korea: what’s changed
The video in this 2007 post is gone, but the story kept moving. In January 2024, South Korea’s parliament passed a law banning the breeding, slaughter, distribution and sale of dogs for food, with a three-year grace period. The full ban takes effect in February 2027. Eating dog meat isn’t penalised in itself, but the trade that supplies it is being closed down.
The ban didn’t come out of nowhere. Dog meat (best known in the stew bosintang, traditionally eaten on the hottest days of summer) had been fading for decades. In surveys, a large majority of South Koreans said they hadn’t eaten it recently and didn’t plan to. The government is paying dog farmers to close and trying to rehome the remaining animals.
So our original 2007 “Lassie, NOOOO!” turns out to have been the majority opinion in Korea too. They just got there with legislation instead of caps lock.
See also: bat soup from Palau and the rest of Weird Eats.
From the 2007 original
(The original video in this post is no longer available on YouTube.)
Personallý I think, that eating dog meat is really no more unethical than eating pigs for example. However, as we here in the West see dogs as man’s best friend, most people find the habit rather disgusting.
Here’s a video about Korean restaurant in China, which specializes in dishes made from dog meat.
Lassie, NOOOO!
