In many countries, Golden Retriever dogs are highly esteemed as the perfect furry companion to have. They are super loveable, incredibly obedient when trained, loyal, friendly, excitable, and protective. They are literally everything a person could want in a dog! Unfortunately, though, there are some countries who desire Golden’s for entirely different attributes; namely their meat.
This tragic fact of life is all too true in China, where Golden Retrievers are thought of simply as meat dogs, sought after not for all of the wonderful unique qualities that make a Golden your best friend, but desired only for the meat they can provide.
One rescue is working overtime to save as many Golden Retrievers as possible from such a fate.
Source: Youtube screenshot/KARE 11
Retrieve A Golden of the Midwest (a.k.a. RAGOM) is a United States-based animal rescue organization specifically designed to save the Golden Retrievers set out for the meat markets in China by bringing them home to the US.
If you’re wondering how severe the situation must be to expend so much time, energy, and money in flying these dogs back to the states, RAGOM has an answer for you.
According to the rescue group, a rough estimation of about 10 million Golden Retrievers are skinned, butchered and sold for their meat each year. Horrifying videos and images of the helpless dogs stuffed into tiny cages and carelessly stacked in the back of load-bearing trucks, sometimes three or four cages deep, circulate all over the internet.
Source: Youtube screenshot/KARE 11
Perhaps even more shocking than knowing that the dogs are slaughtered for meat is the fact that these Golden Retrievers were never bred for that purpose.
In other words, the majority of the dogs that see the butchers knife each year in China were actually stolen!
Source: Youtube screenshot/KARE 11
One of RAGOM’s board of director members, Nicole Stundzia, saw the truth of this herself a few months ago back in February when she was in China on a rescue mission to save 2 Golden Retrievers from such a fate.
“I learned while I was over there, they don’t walk dogs on leashes,” Stundzia said. “So it’s very easy for somebody to jump out of a truck, grab a dog, jump in, and drive off,” the diehard rescuer explains in an interview with news media outlet KARE 11.
Stundzia goes on in the interview to divulge that while the dogs are kept in a “sheltered” area, the conditions are hardly what someone would consider adequate, even if only using it to keep animals raised for meat. The hundreds of dogs are crammed into too small an area for it to ever be considered healthy living conditions.
“It was a hundred dogs at least, and they were just all starving for human attention. Jumping on gates, they wanted you to pet them,” she recalls of the shelter.
Source: Youtube screenshot/KARE 11
While everyone around them knew that these gorgeous Golden Retrievers were being held as stock for slaughter, they clearly weren’t aware of it.
All they wanted was to simply act like a Golden and love on anyone that would pay them attention.
Source: Youtube screenshot/KARE 11
Even though there were dozens upon dozens of dogs locked in the kennels, there was one retriever in particular that stood out from the rest to Stundzia.
“I’d walk up to her kennel and she’d sit so pretty for attention, it was hard to walk away. There was something in her eyes. It was just so sad, so I took her picture,” she remembers of the forlorn looking pup.
Source: Youtube screenshot/KARE 11
Stundzia couldn’t help but feel drawn to the sad dog like a magnet.
Known only as dog number 6894, the compassionate rescuer endearingly coined her with the name Mama.
While the rescuer had undoubtedly fallen head-over-heels for Mama, she was already there to save the two other dogs and the airlines enforced a strict limit to how many she could bring back with her at one time. Not knowing what else she could do, she looked to the other volunteers in her organization for help in saving Mama from the awful fate that awaited her.
Source: Youtube screenshot/KARE 11
“RAGOM village kind of rallied together and a volunteer was kind enough to go over there with her husband and daughter and they were able to bring Mama back with four others. It’s unbelievable to me that she made it back there,” Studzia marvels at her rescues unparalelled compassion for Studzia’s situation.
While it can get pretty rough in the rescue business, playing witness to so many atrocities, Sutdzia loves what she does and says that seeing happy endings to stories like Mama’s and the other dogs like her makes her job completely and utterly worthwhile.
“It’s rewarding, part of being the pre-adoption team, it’s so, so fun to see these families so excited to adopt dogs that I had a part in bringing back over,” she says.
To see the full story of how Studzia saved Mama and countless other Golden Retrievers, watch the video below.
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