Dogs Tasered, Choked, Force-Fed Alcohol, Wasabi, On Live Stream

A man in China was tracked down after he was seen abusing dogs by various methods on live stream to earn money.

Qiu Hengqing, 30, from Qingzhou city, Shandong province, was publicly shamed after he tortured three toy poodles and live streamed it on the social media site Qzone, owned by Chinese multinational conglomerate company Tencent.

He regularly posted videos on his account on the platform that could be accessed by the public for subscriptions costing between 80 yuan ($11.5) and 120 yuan ($17). Users could also pay Hengqing additional tips after watching the videos.

In one of the videos, Hengqing could be seen squeezing the neck of one of the poodles as it whimpered in pain, while in another, he tasered a dog, causing it to run away from him. In some of the other clips, he was seen feeding the animals alcohol and wasabi paste and stuffing them in the freezer.

On Monday, the three poodles were rescued when a group of 10 animal rights activists tracked down the man’s home. In a video, showing the rescue, banners with the phrase “Dog-abusing devil Qiu Hengqing, blood for blood” written in Chinese, was seen draped over Hengqing’s house.

The dogs were kept in cages when the activists stormed into his house. The rescued canines will be given new homes.

“We hope the man would keep his promise and never abuse dogs or any other animals again,” Keith Guo, PETA Asia's media officer for China, told Mail Online. “People who abuse animals for profit, revenge or for fun must be stopped. At the same time, we hope that companies behind social media platforms could be more diligent in uncovering and deleting similar accounts. Experts have identified cruelty to animals as a sign of psychopathy and a red flag indicating future escalating violence.”

China lacks the required legislation to protect animal welfare or prevent cruelty to animals, despite having laws in place for safeguarding land-based and aquatic wildlife.

Human Rights in China, a Chinese non-governmental organization based in New York, said although a draft law on the protection of animals and another on the prevention of cruelty to animals were circulated for the State Council's consideration by animal rights activists and legal experts in 2009 and 2010 respectively, they were never finalized and passed as laws.

The drafts proposed a punishment of two weeks in police detention and a fine of a maximum of 6,000 yuan ($869) for those found guilty of animal cruelty.