Even though things are pretty horrible in the United States right now, we should all be grateful that we're not living in North Korea. They've got way bigger problems than Donald Trump potentially gearing up for a second term as President.
According to the Chosun Ilbo media outlet in South Korea, the Supreme Leader of North Korea made the call to confiscate all pet dogs in the country, selling them to the restaurant trade in July, making remarks that seem crazy to us Westerners.
Apparently, Kim Jong-un says that having pet dogs is a "decadent" luxury and "a ‘tainted’ trend by bourgeois ideology." He is ordering all North Korean residents to surrender their pet dogs to be killed for food.
The outlet notes that this move is likely to quell public outrage over the economic downturn that North Korea experienced during the pandemic. Dogs are regularly consumed in North Korean restaurants, but this is still pretty wild to read.
"Authorities have identified households with pet dogs and are forcing them to give them up or forcefully confiscating them and putting them down," said a source.
Pets will either be brought to a zoo or euthanized.
Another source said that only high-ranking residents of North Korea have dogs. "Ordinary people raise pigs and livestock on their porches, but high-ranking officials and the wealthy own pet dogs, which stoked some resentment," they said.