Dogs Beaten, Bled To Death Inside Slaughterhouse, Video Shows

A shocking video was made public Thursday showing the inside scenes of an Indonesian slaughterhouse where dogs were beaten and left to bleed to death. The horrific footage recorded by the Dog Meat-Free Indonesia (DMFI) coalition aimed at calling for urgent actions by animal rights campaigners and celebrity ambassadors to bring an end to the brutal killings.

The video was taken as part of an undercover sting by animal welfare groups in the Central Javan capital city of Surakarta, where up to 13,500 dogs are killed for their meat each month. The dogs that are beaten are left to bleed while still conscious. The canines are brought to the slaughterhouse in sacks before being thrown into cages. Their mouths are also bound to stop them from barking before they are beaten with planks of wood.

According to Change for Animals Foundation, the welfare group which led the investigation, the dogs are both strays taken from the street and stolen from homes. The foundation's spokeswoman Lola Webber described the fear in dogs’ eyes as “unforgettable.”

“Dogs are captured from the streets and stolen from people’s homes to be taken on long journeys — often lasting for days — tightly packed in pick-up trucks or in hessian sacks, their mouths bound shut so they can hardly breathe,” she said in a statement. “They are then taken to filthy slaughterhouses where they watch others being slaughtered as they wait their turn, trembling in fear.”

It’s believed that 7 percent of the Indonesian population eats dog meat. In the video, one dog meat seller admits to selling up to 132 pounds of meat a day.

“It is time to finally wake up to the true cost of the dog meat trade. It is a public health emergency directly responsible for thousands of deaths every year due to the spread of rabies. No meal is worth so many innocent lives," Jill Robinson MBE, Animals Asia founder, said, in a statement.

Karin Franken, Jakarta Animal Aid Network, also urged Indonesia's central government’s Ministry of Agriculture to take actions.

"For now, the illegal trades continue, threatening the health and safety of millions of Indonesians, and resulting in the suffering of thousands of animals each day. DMFI stands ready to help provide practical and on-the-ground support to secure the dual aims of eliminating both the dog and cat meat trades and rabies,” Franken said.