Dog Blog

When I first told everyone at home that i was going to Korea, the most common reaction would be a snide comment about eating dog meat. I've asked lots of Koreans, and most of them have said they've either never tried it, or they have maybe tried it once or twice, but it's not a habitual thing. But now I'm here there's something far, far worse they do to dogs apart from eat them.

They find themselves a cute little puppy (usually they are dogs that won't ever really grow any bigger than puppy size), like the ones below that can be bought at any sort of supermarket.  That's when the real torture starts...

For some reason, Koreans seem to think that dogs look better if they have ridiculous hair cuts, dyed body parts and wear clothes (and shoes). Here are just some of the sights that we've seen so far...

What's more is how mental they go when they see a bigger dog. I was at Haeundae beach the other week and saw a larger dog, and there was a crowd of about 20 people crowded around it taking pictures. When the owner started walking off, there was a parade of happy Koreans following them. Strange.

So today was pretty grim in Korea, I think the wet season is slowly creeping in, so Tasha and I decided to go to the dog cafe that's in Jangsan, just past Haeundae. Piritoned up to the eyeballs, we arrived, and it was cute to be greeted by so many different kinds of dogs. It cost 8,000 won on entry (which is about £6) and you could order as many drinks as you wanted. The drinks included coffee, tea, smoothies and hot chocolate. You could also eat as much cake as you wanted, and there was a fair bit to choose from, but nothing that was particularly special. The best decision we made was to have the smoothies, my kiwi one was awesome.

Although lots of people have raved about the cafe, I wasn't too impressed. I think I may have been spoiled by the cat cafe in KSU. The place felt pretty dirty, some of the dogs were really yappy, others were fighting alot, and lots of them didn't seem right. Either their fur felt dirty or matted to touch, their eyes looked like they'd been weeping and alot of them were pretty skinny. It has the potential to be a good place, but didn't really impress me.

Not only did I get mauled by one massive dog that nearly sent me flying which Tasha managed to capture my terrified face on camera, but I had left the cake I decided to try as it was gross. When I got back to the table I noticed it had disappeared, and suspected Tasha might have eaten it when I left, but when she got back to the table she said she hadn't touched it, then we noticed this tiny white dog on the table next to us, licking the straw of a milkshake that had been left unattended by an unsuspecting boy...I felt awful when I saw him later finishing it off. Gross!

My favourite dog was a teeny doberman lookalike and the alsatian puppy. I really wanted to like the husky with it's different coloured eyes, but it kept fighting with all of the other dogs!

Here are two videos we took while we were there. I've recently discovered a setting on my camera which takes a video 3 seconds before the actual picture is taken, and then creates a montage, so this is where the videos are from. They're not great quality at all as the dogs were moving so much but you can see how cute some of the dogs were...




I may be biased as I am more of a cat person, but my favourite thing at the cafe was this cat, proving that even the cats can't escape from the ridiculous modifications...