This month we were notified about a dog meat farm in South Korea holding 26 dogs who were living in deplorable conditions and facing a horrific fate. Now, however, they’re all safe at our rescue partner Jindo Love Rescue’s foster facility, where they’re getting a second chance to start new lives.

We were alerted to their plight and when we looked into the land ownership, we found it’s owned by the city, which means the dog meat farm was illegal. Our foster mom reported it, and city officials told the facility owner to shut it down by April 4.

The bad news was that we knew he would try to sell the dogs to slaughterhouses as quickly as possible to make some money off of them, so our foster mom and her volunteers headed to the property, which is about an hour away from our foster center in Gimhae.

When they arrived, they saw two Jindos who were believed to be a mother and daughter wandering around, who led them to the rest of the dogs — and to the farm’s very angry owner. He didn’t want to surrender the dogs, and tried to hide the mother and daughter so he could continue to breed them.

The rest of the dogs were either in filthy, rusty cages filled with feces, or chained to stakes in the ground. All the water bowls were bone dry, and there was no food in sight.

Now, they’re all safe and getting good food and water, sleeping on clean blankets for the first time and learning what it means to be loved.

While we’re grateful we were able to save these dogs, this was a big and unexpected expense and it’s only just the beginning. They still all need to be medically assessed, and we know that a few of the puppies are sick.

In the meantime, we’re going to do our best to help each one of these dogs start over and find the perfect forever homes when they’re ready. 

You can help give these dogs what they need to start their new lives by making a much-needed donation.