[This article contains content that may offend some readers]

We first heard rumors that the Yulin dog eating festival was to be cancelled, and then heard reports that it had already taken place last week. With tensions running high between animal rights activists and Yulin’s traditional dog-eaters, it now appears Yulin’s dog sellers are taunting activists and exploiting their love of dogs.

READ: Animal Activists Clash with Dog-Serving Guangxi Restaurant

Reports in the Morning Report suggest that dog sellers in Yulin are selling their live dogs to animal activists at inflated prices while threatening harm to the dogs in their possession.

At 9am on June 20 at a market for dogs, an animal rights activist named Zhao Hao (a pseudonym) from Chongqing was spotted by a dog seller. This seller used a hand clamp to catch a dog by its neck and hoist it into the air. The dog seller said, “Are you going to buy it or not? If you don’t buy it, I’m going to strangle it!” He pressed the issue by saying, “Do you want to buy it or not? 600 yuan!”

PHOTOS: Shocking: the Brazen Capture of a Dog in Broad Daylight in Guangdong

Zhao and two other activists named Yang Xiaoyun from Tianjin and Yang Yuhua from Chongqing had already bought ten dogs from dog sellers. They tried to haggle with him as the price went down to 500 yuan, and then 400 yuan. Finally, the dog was purchased for RMB 350.

After being paid, the dog seller stood up and made a big show of waving his new earnings in the air. Bystanders were heard to support the dog seller by saying “well done” while others are said to have given him a thumbs up.

This same tactic was used by another dog seller in the area who had witnessed the transaction. This time, Zhao ended up paying 1,600 yuan for five dogs. Once again, the dog seller made a show of dancing with his cash held above his head.

READ: Dog Beaten to Death in Beijing in Front of Foreign Owner

In another story by Morning Report, 64 year-old Yang Xiaoyun is seen getting on her knees to beg two young men to resell her the golden retriever they had just purchased. The men said the dog was to be a gift for one of their girlfriends, but Yang didn’t believe it. Instead, she held the chain and continued arguing with the seller for ten minutes.

While many activists have arrived in Yulin to protest the annual dog eating festival, residents remain skeptical of their actions. One young male resident said, “Where do they move the dogs after buying them? I had heard before that dogs are abandoned and left to starve at the side of the road.”

RELATED: Doctors In Yulin Told To Stay Away From Dog Eating Festival

Other people are more pragmatic and see no line between a dog’s role as a pet or as dinner. One dog seller was seen trying to sell two small dogs for 800 yuan. The man said he had raised them for three years:

“These are for people to eat, who said dogs raised as pets can’t be eaten? They’re all for eating. There are people here who would pay several tens of thousands of dollars to buy a Tibetan mastiff in order to eat it.”

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UPDATE 1, 8:08pm June 20: From the time this was posted to Weibo at around 3:30 this afternoon, this post has gotten a tremendous amount of attention. Within its first four hours of being published, this post received 1,219 likes, was forwarded 12,308 times, and received 7,737 comments. The following is a small sample of them:

直面惨淡的人参：
No matter what, I feel that maintaining a standard to respect all life is something that is not outrageous. You can say that you love to eat dog meat, but you should at least not mistreat the dog before you eat it, and not mistreat it’s corpse afterwards, okay? (I) don’t feel as though loving dogs will make me turn into some kind of Virgin Mary. People can spend their money to do whatever they want, and is not anyone else’s goddamn business?

顾此失1彼：
When all these dogs cause a disaster, who will take care of it? Why do these dog lovers and dog owners abandon their dogs? Those dog lovers who take their dogs out for a walk in public places will defecate and urinate all over the place; is this a demonstration of their love? Who has made the decision that dogs aren’t allowed to be eaten? Is it illegal? Does your love for your dog eclipse your love for you mother and father? Many of these dog-loving sons of bitches don’t even regard their elders as people, and yet they fucking have the nerve to say they love dogs?

肖-天爱：
I take a neutral position on the issue of eating dogs, but this kind of dirty trick is fucking shameless [angry.emo]

seaseek：
Dog-slaughterers, spectators, hecklers: these people are just like the characters at the beheading Lu Xun had wrote about before who fought over steamed buns covered in human blood. It’s such a shame that years later, all that has changed is the time and the setting. People haven’t changed! What a tragedy! What a shame!

小太阳-sugar：
Very cruel.

Youyou艾特_正能量:
After you rescue (the dogs), how are you going to take care of them?

Related:

• Chaos in Huiyang as Dog Thieves Are Surrounded and Beaten by Angry Villagers
• Video: Dog in Heshan, Guangdong Snatched in Mere Seconds
• Another Brutal Dog Killing, This Time at a Shelter in Hangzhou
• Dogs Move From the Dinner Plate to the Perfect Companion
• Drunk Woman Passes Out in the Street, Pet Dogs Protect Her

Photo: Luzheng Gongshu, Weibo (2)