South Korea forbidden dog meat. So what happens to dogs?

If he did not preach the word of God, honoring Joo Yeo-bong raises the dogs to slaughter.

The business is not good though. In fact, it is in the room to be illegal.

“Since last summer we try to sell our dogs, but the merchants continue to doubt,” Mr Joo, 60, told the BBC. “No one appeared.”

In 2024, the South Korean government has carried out a country to prohibit dog meat for consumption. Landmark law, passed in January, gives farmers as Mr Joo to February 2027 to prevent their remaining animals.

But many say that it is not enough time to allow an industry that leads to generations – and the authorities have not yet come to sufficient cautions for farmers or estimates of a million dogs in captivity.

Even those who support the ban, including experts and animal rights advocates, have flagged issues around its enforcement – including the difficulty of rehoming dogs that, having been saved from the kill floor, now face the increasingly likes threats of euthanasia.

The middle through the grace period, the dog farmers find themselves in hundreds of uncontrollable animals, farms that are not damaged, and small ways to put food on the table.

“People suffer,” Mr Joo said, also the President of the Korean Association of the edible dogs, a group representing the industry. “We’re degraded, we can’t pay, and some don’t even … find new jobs.

“It’s a hopeless situation.”

Chan-woo has 18 months to get 600 dogs.

After that, the 33-year-old meat meat – agreed to be unknown due to the fear of backlash – facing punishment for up to two years in prison.

“Realistic, even on my farm, I can’t process the number of dogs I have at that time,” he said. “This time I invested all my possessions (on the farm) – and yet they didn’t get the dogs.”

Through “they”, Chan-Woo not only means that merchants and butchers before banning, buy an average of half a dozen dogs each week.

He also spoke of activists of the rights of animals and authorities in his view, struggling to break the dog’s breach, associated with 500,000, according to government estimates.

“They (the authorities) pass the law without a real plan, and now they say they don’t get the dogs.”

Lee Sangsong, a Tenane World’s campaign manager for Korean animals (HWAK), echoed these concerns.

“Even if the dog’s depreciation is then, the government and civic groups are still on how to save the rest of the dogs,” he said. “A place feeling still lacking is the discussion of dogs left.”

A spokesman from agricultural ministry, rural and map activities) that if farm owners give their dogs, local governments consider possession and handle them in the habitats.

However, reinvesting them proved to be difficult.

Since the weight corresponds to the dog’s meat industry, farms are likely to favor greater varieties. But in the South Koreazed society of Urbanized, where many people live in apartment complexes, the pet owners often want to be opposite.

There is also a social stigma associated with dogs from meat farms, Mr. Lee explained, because of pain and trauma. The issue is more complicated by the fact that many are pure or mixed with tosa-inu, a differently classified “dangerous” in agreement with South Korea and requires a government to resume a pet.

Meanwhile, rescue counters have been overcrowdeded.

This perfect storm of obstacles focuses on a perverted irony: those countless dogs called dogs, without going, now face hope to be euthanised.

“It’s never credible,” says Chan-Woo.

“Because the law is made according to the demands of these groups, I believe they are also working on a solution for dogs – I want to even groups of animal rights are the euthanasia option.”

Cho Hee-Kyung, head of Korean Aksade Welfare Asfare, agreed on September 2024 while groups of rights try to save as many animals as possible, have “dogs left”.

“If the rest of the dogs can be ‘lost and abandoned animals’ then it makes it sad but they will be asked,” he said.

The government wants to confidently these problems later, saying that euthanising animals are “sure” not about their plan.

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But Chun Myung-Sun, Director of Medical Veterinary Education Director of Seoul National University, agreeing to be the wider government plan for dogs who do not have all dogs.

“You have to have a concrete talk about how ‘to reject’ dogs,” he said.

“The two adoption and euthanasia should be on the table.

Some seek solutions in the added way to bark outside the animals outside of the ready adoptive adopters like Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States.

In 2023, a team from the hawak saves about 200 dogs from a city city farm – all is sent to Canada and the US.

The former owner of that farm, 74-year-old Yang Jong-Tae, told the BBC that as he watched the rescuers loading his dogs into their trucks, he was astonished by the level of compassion they showed.

“When I see how they handle animals – like they are handling people, slowly and loving – it moves me.

“We don’t treat us so. For us, dogs who raise a way to make a living. But those people are from dogs with dignities, and that’s very touching my heart.”

Instead, Mr. Yang hurried to add, however, that he did not agree to the ban on dog meat.

“If dog meat is forbidden because dogs are animals, then why are okay with other animals like cows, pigs or chickens?” He said. “It’s the same thing. These things exist in nature to live people.”

Food dog is not the same as eating other meats, according to MS Cun. He pointed out that dog meat brings more risk from a sight of food and cleanliness of sight – especially in South Korea, where it was not mixed with the formal meat production system.

And while consumption rates change the whole history of Korea, it turns out to be more taboo in recent years.

A government poll from 2024 was found only 8% respondents they tried dog meats in the past 12 months – and about 3.3% in 2015.

Meanwhile, June 2025, 623 of 1,537 dog farms in South Korea have closed.

“As society and culture progresses, the South Korea Society has now made the decision to stop making dog meat,” says Cun Cun.

And yet most of it remains a stone in the corner of an industry they build their lives.

Each meat meat on the dog is BBC talks to express uncertainty how they support themselves now that their long-term livelihood is considered illegal.

Some say that they keep themselves in poverty, knowing that they are born in Korean war and know how to live hungry. Some suggest that trade can go underground.

Many agree, however, for young farmers crackdown is more concerned.

“Young people in this industry are really facing a quick fact,” says Mr. Joo. “Because they can’t sell the dogs, they also don’t shut down quickly. They agree, with no progress or back.”

Chan-Woo recalls that when he began working in the industry a decade ago, at 23, “understanding dog meat is not negative”.

“However,” he added, “There were some comments from the people around me, so though I used to know it was something I could have been with the rest of my life.”

The prohibition lasted than he had expected – and because it was known, he said, “To do a living is unsure”.

“Everything we expect now is that the grace period can be extended to the process (in dealing with the rest of the dogs) can happen slowly.”

Many others expect the same. But as the dog’s meat industry is pulled from the bottom of the feet of people who trust in it, Mr. Joo cannot stop a serious thinking: that some farmers may not endure uncertainty.

“Today, people are still on, hope that something can change – maybe the time of grace can be reached,” he said. “But at 2027, I truly believe that something terrible is going to happen.

“There are many people whose lives are completely unchanged.”