Stray dogs strangled, gassed in the Philippines

More than a dozen street dogs were brutally gassed and killed as part of a government campaign to keep the streets safe from possibly rabid animals. Workers strangled the dogs – while spectators watched - as they put them inside a steel cage and suffocated one after the other by fumes from the exhaust of a petrol engine in Kidapawan City on November 3, 2009. (Mindanao Examiner Photo / Geo Solmerano)

KIDAPAWAN CITY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / November 17, 2009) – More than a dozen street dogs were brutally gassed and killed as part of a government campaign to keep the streets safe from possibly rabid animals.

Workers strangled the dogs – while spectators watched - as they put them inside a steel cage and suffocated one after the other by fumes from the exhaust of a petrol engine in Kidapawan City early this month. 

The dead dogs were later buried in a pit. 

The animals, most of them domesticated, but left unattended by their owners, had been hunted down. The animals were caged for five days in a pound to give ample time for their owners to reclaim them and pay a fee, but if unclaimed the dogs are summarily executed. 

Workers usually rev up their petrol engine so fumes from the exhaust fill up the steel cage and suffocate the dogs. The process takes at least 7 minutes until the dogs die from carbon monoxide poisoning.

In Cagayan de Oro City in Misamis Oriental province, dogs are also euthanized by gassing them in a cage similar to those in Kidapawan City.

 

Animal welfare advocates said gassing stray dogs violates Republic Act 8485 or the Animal Welfare Act.

In other areas in the Philippines, unclaimed dogs in pounds are either drowned or shot to death. While in some provinces, stray dogs are hunted for their meat which is a delicacy in the country’s northern part. (Geo Solmerano)