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Medan, Indonesia – For Silas Sihombing, a government employee, the reasons for eating dog meat cannot be very simple.
“I’m eating dog today because I’m hungry,” Sihombing told Al Jazeera at the Lau Dimbo Simalem restaurant in Medan, North Sumatra.
“And look, I’m sweating. A dog does that, the meat gets hot.
Dog meat restaurants can be found in Medan, where the indigenous Batak are known for their protein taste.
According to Dog Meat Free Indonesia, which campaigns against the dog meat trade, an estimated 7 percent of Indonesians eat dog meat.
Although 87 percent of Indonesia’s 270 million people are Muslim and dog products are considered haram or forbidden, in the same way as pork, 9 percent of the population is Christian.
Dog meat is eaten mostly in predominantly Christian parts of the country, such as North Sumatra, North Sulawesi and East Nusa Tenggara, where only 9 percent of the population is Muslim.
While animal rights groups protest that the trade promotes cruelty and public health problems such as rabies, many Indonesians see the idea that eating dog meat should be banned as no different than eating chicken or beef.
Diki Senda, secretary and food activist for Molo town in East Nusa Tenggara, said the dog meat trade in the district has increased dramatically in recent years, with stalls selling dog meat cooked in aromatic spices.
“According to our research, the Molo people did not eat dog,” Senda told Al Jazeera.
“Dogs are important animals in Molo culture as companions and relatives. This is why dog paw prints are a common motif in Molo folk textiles. As a farming and hunting society, dogs are considered companion animals.
I don’t know exactly when it started, but now it’s becoming more and more popular to eat dogs.
Senda said the growing popularity of dog restaurants in East Nusa Tenggara meant that dog butchers were struggling with supply and demand.
This has led to the trend of poisoning street dogs with potash-laced food, which renders the animals unconscious but does not harm the flesh.
“I’ve lost five or six dogs this way in the last few years,” Senda said.
The dog meat-free Indonesian government has been lobbying for years to ban dog meat, and many local governments have outlawed the sale of dog meat in their areas.
Last year, a dog meat trader in Central Java became the first person to be prosecuted for his role in the business. After the businessman was sentenced to 10 months in prison and fined $10,000, more than 70 dogs were loaded onto a truck and shipped to dog meat cafes and restaurants.
On July 6, a letter signed by Medan Mayor Bobby Nasution was announced that the sale or sale of dog meat is prohibited.
Following the outcry, a spokesperson for the mayor’s office clarified that the letter was not a ban on eating dog meat, but a “recommendation.”
Back in the field, Sihombing, who had been eating dogs since childhood, could see no reason why he should refuse the meat, which he thought was delicious, as it was usually free of fat.
According to the dog expert, the animal’s poop is the sweetest part.
“You can’t kill tigers or elephants because they are endangered and it is difficult to breed many of them, but there are many dogs. When they give birth, there are often many puppies.
“If you can kill other animals and eat them, what is the legal reason why you are not allowed to kill dogs?”
Maria Tarigan, owner of Lau Dimbo Simalem, said that while not all Batak people eat dog, many support the meat for its medicinal purposes, including unproven claims that it can cure diseases.
“Dog meat is good for typhoid and dengue fever and even if you have covid,” said Tarrigan. “I am proof of that. I was sick with covid and drank dog soup and it made me better.
During the outbreak, the restaurant did roaring business on dog soup, Tarrigan said, as customers flocked there and ordered bags for sick relatives in the hospital.
But owning a dog meat restaurant comes with its own set of unique challenges.
Tarigan said her application to register as a business on GoFood, a popular Indonesian online food delivery app, was rejected as a deal, even though she was able to list her restaurant on the app’s shopping section, GoShop.
Tarrigan said she suspects her restaurant was unable to register because it only serves dog meat.
“We have 20 agents that we meet our dogs with,” she said. “They call and tell me when dogs are caught. We get our dogs from different places. If the dog has puppies, the owners can sell us the puppies they don’t want.
Tarrigan said her restaurant kills three or four dogs a day to keep up with demand, up to 21 each week.
“I would definitely cry if I had a dog and something happened to him, especially if he was with me every day and his tail was wagging when I came home,” Tarrigan said.
“If he was by my side all day, I would certainly stick with him, but really, what’s the difference between eating another animal?”
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