Viet Dog

If you own a dog and it is part of your family, you look to see how other cultures and countries live with their dogs.  Since the dog can be found almost everywhere in the world, we wondered how things would be for the dogs we saw on our trip. I was dreading the plight of the dog in Vietnam. I'm happy to say I have not seen neglect, lack of food and none of them looked like strays. There is a particular size and shape of most of the dogs we saw in Vietnam, mostly in the smaller towns which we have labeled a breed know as Viet Dog.  In the cities you do see a few designer dogs, presumably by people who are better off financially.

Most of the dogs we saw have jobs like watching over the family or minding a shop. As you would expect they do this job even though they appear to be sleeping.  Like at Mrs. Gong's laundry in Hoi An where although appearing to be sleeping he announces a new customer and Mrs Gong comes running. Others are obviously family pets and live a life of leisure like our dogs in the US.

Yes, in in very rural parts of Vietnam people still eat dog but you must remember they eat everything. No one knows exactly when the Vietnamese started eating dog, but its consumption, primarily in the north, underlines a long tradition for drinking parties, family reunions and special occasions and is said to increase a man's virility, warm the blood on cold winter nights and help provide medicinal cures, and is considered a widely available, protein-rich, healthy alternative to other meats. When you talk to people about eating dog they seem to separate their dog which they would never eat from the dog meat for sale which isn't like their dog.

When we got to Cambodia we also saw dogs with jobs, for example a dog on a Tut Tut wearing a cape, hat and goggles. There are noticeably fewer dogs in Cambodia and we saw only a few that didn't look like Viet Dog.