Being carried in strollers instead of children: why have they stopped eating dogs in South Korea?

In South Korea, they fell in love with lapdogs and refused dog meat dishes. What happened? Andrei Lankov, a professor at Kunming University (Seoul), tells about this in the Profile magazine.

As Ilf and Petrov also noticed, statistics knows everything. Including how in Korea is doing well with pets, whether they love seals more than dogs, and which breeds are in special favor. A report containing answers to these burning questions is prepared annually by a special department. And this is not some association of veterinarians, but ... a research unit of Kookmin bank. The last report was published very recently — in June. The fact that the bank is engaged in the study of this topic is actually quite logical: keeping pets can be quite expensive, and it is very interesting and useful for financiers to know about such expenses.

So, in 2024, 5.9 million families in South Korea kept pets at home, which included 15.546 million people. In other words, 29.9% of the country's population owns pets. By the way, the number of such families is growing quite rapidly: compared to 2023, there are 5% more of them.

On average, a family that has pets spends 194 thousand won (about $ 120) on their maintenance every month. Long gone are the days when cats and dogs in Korea led a harsh, almost Spartan existence. Now the pet care industry is developed in the country. We are talking not only about stores specializing in feed, or about veterinary clinics, often around the clock, but also about the production and sale of a variety of accessories designed for small animals.

If you see a stroller on the street in Seoul today, then, perhaps, it is more likely that there will be not a child in it, but a dog. The fascination with pets, especially small indoor dogs, seems to be developing synchronously with the catastrophic drop in the birth rate in Korea.

But back to the statistics. Dogs and cats predominate among pets. In 2025, there were 5.36 million domestic dogs in South Korea (an increase of 13% compared to 2023) and 2.17 million cats (a decrease of 10%). It's easy to see: there are twice as many dogs as cats. But there is nothing surprising in this: to cats in Korea's attitude is a little wary, and the main pet traditionally remains a dog.

Note, by the way, that in the 1970s and 1980s in Aquariums were very popular in Korea, at that time they were available in almost most urban families. However, recently the fish have noticeably lost ground and aquariums are quite rare.

It is believed that all domestic cats on planet Earth are descendants of those who were tamed in Ancient Egypt. And when cats appeared in Korea? If you believe the legends, then in the middle of the I millennium A.D., after Buddhism entered the country. Buddhist monks discovered that temple mice were spoiling sacred texts. It was not appropriate for the monks themselves to catch and kill mice, since harming any living being is contrary to their religion. Well, cats are another matter, catching mice will not aggravate their karma. Therefore, they were entrusted with the dirty but necessary work of protecting the scriptures from rodents.

It is difficult to say how true this legend is. But there is no doubt that cats appeared in Korea is relatively late, really later than Buddhism and Buddhist monks. The first documentary evidence of the presence of domestic cats in Korea belongs to the V-VI centuries. However, the cat became a real part of Korean culture only by the XV century with the coming to power of the Lee dynasty.

By the way, in the XVIII century, local artists discovered that seals are a real gold mine. At that time in Commercial art appeared in Korea, paintings began to be painted for sale. As you know, images of cute cats are popular all over the world. Korea was no exception here, and local artists, of course, took advantage of this circumstance.

Almost half of all cats in In Korea (44.7%) are representatives of the local breed, which is usually referred to as Korean shorthair. In second place — Russian blue (12.8%), in third — "Persians" (9.6%), and in fourth — cats and cats, whose breed during the survey was described by their owners using the phrase "And who knows him?" Such as "and who knows him" — 9.1% of the total cat population.

And what about dog breeds? In South Korea, dogs are mostly small. This is due to the fact that almost 2/3 of the population live in multi-apartment, multi-storey buildings. In new houses, the average area of an apartment is 85 square meters. m — not so small, but Koreans believe that there is not enough space for a really big dog.

According to recent data, the most popular in Korea is used by two breeds: the Maltese lapdog, which accounts for 20.4% of the total dog population of the country, and the poodle — 18.9%. In third place (15.1%) are dogs of mixed breeds, that is, simply put, mongrels, but also small. In fourth place — very popular recently in Korean spitz (12.8%). It is curious that their own Korean breeds are large in size, for example, the most important or, at least, the most promoted in The Korean Chindo breed is a fairly solid dog with a height at the withers of about 50 cm.

Friends, not food

I must say that the growing popularity of pets has dealt a heavy and possibly fatal blow to one of the Korean culinary traditions — eating dog meat. Dogs in Korea has been eaten since time immemorial. It was believed that this meat is especially useful to eat on hot summer days. The main dish of dog meat is posinthan soup (translated as "longevity soup"). But do not be afraid that you will Korea will be served something cooked from a dog in a restaurant: its meat is an expensive and rare delicacy, and not a cheap substitute for pork or beef.

Of course, pets have never been used for culinary needs. In Korea, for a long time there have been feed breeds of dogs that were bred on special farms. South Korean pomeranians, poodles, and even more so Maltese lapdogs have never been exposed to the danger of getting into the soup and can safely drive around in wheelchairs, carefully bought by the housewives.

However, for several decades this culinary tradition has been on the offensive. The main reason here is obvious: the Westernization of South Korea. Residents of the USA and European countries, including Russia, easily absorb schnitzels (and after all, a pig is also an intelligent and in some ways even a cute animal) with steaks, but they start to get hysterical from the mere thought of eating dog meat. South Korea as a whole, and especially the South Korean middle class, has always been distinguished by pro-Western, primarily pro-American, sympathies and perceives everything Western and European as "exemplary" and "correct." Therefore, new generations of Koreans who grew up on translated books and films began to treat the food traditions of their ancestors as something shameful.

For almost 50 years, eating dog meat has been in a gray area in South Korea, not being completely legal, but not being banned either. Back in 1978, the South Korean government excluded dogs from the official list of farm animals. As a result, the breeding of feed breeds of dogs, slaughter and processing of their meat were not regulated at the level of national legislation.

And now this ambiguity has come to an end. At the very beginning of last year, on January 9, the South Korean parliament adopted the law "On the cessation of breeding and slaughter of dogs for food purposes." This law will come into force after a three-year transition period, that is, in January 2027. It prohibits the breeding and slaughter of dogs for the purpose of eating, as well as the sale of products prepared using dog meat. Violation of the law will be punishable by imprisonment for up to three years or a fine of up to 30 million won (about $ 20 thousand).

Traditions are true

However, the old traditions are still revered in North Korea, they are not inclined to adapt to the tastes of foreigners and customs of distant countries and do not suffer from complexes about quite harmless features of their culture. Dog meat in The DPRK is considered, and quite rightly, a traditional national food. The country regularly hosts competitions-festivals of dog meat dishes, in which chefs of the best restaurants participate, and the North Korean media willingly tell about such competitions.

According to the newspaper "Nodon Sinmun", the next such competition was held in July 2024 in Pyongyang (and, hopefully, will be held again soon). In 2019, in the city of Chongjin, in the north-east of the country, a large restaurant specializing exclusively in dog meat dishes was built, and this happened, as the local press emphasized, on the personal instructions of Kim Jong-un.

However, outside of North Korea, eating dog meat does seem to be a thing of the past. Until recently, one of the main attractions of the Chinese autonomous region of Yanbian, populated by Koreans and located on the border of China with the DPRK, were restaurants where dog meat was served. Gastronomic tourism is very typical for China, and many Chinese went to Yanbian is precisely in order to try this dish. However, in recent years, even there, an unofficial (in the current Chinese style) campaign has begun to limit the consumption of dog meat and the corresponding restaurants have become noticeably smaller.

However, let's return to South Korea and the pets living there. Their dogs and cats in Korea is loved, as, probably, all over the world. At least three—quarters of respondents, more precisely 76%, rated their pleasure at having a dog or cat at home by six or even seven points on a seven-point scale - an increase of almost 9% compared to 2023. I note that owning a pet brings a little more satisfaction to cat owners than to dog owners. But, I repeat, everyone is happy. So here you can only be happy for the Koreans, although, of course, I would like to see children in strollers more often, and not dogs.