Rescued from hell: a trip to a disreputable Korean dog pound

Misu (originally Rada) the day she was rescued

I asked Karen Busch in an e-mail interview why she chose Misu, a white schnauzer who was incarcerated at a dog pound in central Korea, out of all the animals who needed help.

Busch taught English in Korea for seven years and got heavily involved in animal rescue work during her time here. She now operates the Animal Rescue Korea website from Montreal.

A volunteer I'll refer to as "S." rescued the dog on Halloween at Busch's request. S. used Busch's donation to board Misu at a clinic for about a month, and the dog was adopted in early December.

"She reminded me of my first rescue, a schnauzer my parents adopted from me, Chin Chin," Busch wrote back. "[T]he photo that [S.] posted looked so hopeful, I couldn't stand imagining her death. All the photos are painful to look at, but the ones that remind me of either my or my parents' dogs haunt me for months."

I was with S. when she rescued Misu, and I didn't know what to expect when I took the bus to meet her about an hour and a half from Seoul. I'd heard of the place we were going—a municipally funded animal control facility run by a private contractor I'll refer to only as "K." I also knew K.'s reputation. I've withheld names and other important details to avoid putting future rescue efforts in jeopardy.

We met near the bus station, and from there it was a short taxi ride to the business K. owns. Along the way, S. told me K. was "old-fashioned": He knows the standard of care he provides isn't good, but justifies it by saying that's all the city is willing to pay for. He visits just long enough to do the cleaning and feeding, she told me, and the pound is closed the rest of the day.

K. is alleged to have killed animals because rescue groups offered to take them. According to S., he consistently underfeeds the dogs and regularly has to remove dead bodies from the cages. Another witness, also foreign, once saw him put a dog into a garbage bag. The dog was still breathing.

"I didn't say anything," the witness wrote on one of the ARK message boards. "I smiled the whole time he was kicking and slapping dogs."

But a subsequent complaint to the city made the poundkeeper so suspicious that he yelled at the witness's Korean friends when they inquired about animals featured on the city website. He showed them her picture, demanding to know if they knew her.

S. pretends not to know the woman who complained. In fact, they both volunteer on weekends at a no-kill shelter in a neighbouring city.

The actual pound—maybe a 10-minute drive from K's business—accommodates only small and medium-sized dogs. Seven or eight larger dogs were caged in the parking lot where we were waiting, and S. gave them food and water. All the dogs were hungry, thirsty, and eager to be petted. They gave us kisses through the bars.

After a while K. arrived in his van, with a beautiful husky in the back. Later that day, the husky would replace the Samoyed S. intended to rescue. A Korean man was also waiting to adopt a dog.

K. took us to the pound and the man followed in his car. S. and I speak very little Korean and K. speaks very little English, so our communication was limited. We learned, however, that two of the dogs in the parking lot were getting homes.

S. asked K. to confirm that they were being adopted as companions, not for bosintang (dog soup). K. looked hurt that S. could even think such a thing.

We reached the pound and there were several dogs tied up outside. A reddish Jindo dog, housed in a separate pen, was nursing two tiny white puppies. They were all K.'s pets, S. told me.

The city's strays were housed in wire cages in a dark building. The cages were raised a few feet above ground level and there was a dead shih tzu in one, surrounded by living dogs. We went around the room and gave treats, but a few dogs were too scared to take them.

The dogs were standing on wire floors; any food that got dropped fell onto the filthy cement. After a few minutes, K. used a high-powered hose to flush everything down the drain.

At the pound, I saw the taps S. had described when I first asked her about the dogs' living conditions. They're in the back of each cage, attached to a pipe that runs along the walls. There are no water bowls, so the dogs have to drink from the taps to stay alive. S. worries that some never figure it out.

While we were there, a scared dog backed up against a tap while water poured out of it. The dog stared at us, but didn't move away from the water.

K. put some dog food in the metal troughs attached to the outside of each cage. I was distracted at the time, but S. told me it was only a little—as always.

The Korean man decided to adopt a cocker spaniel, and S. asked for Misu. I took the scared little schnauzer out of her cage and back to the van. The Samoyed, later named Mishka, was waiting for us in the parking lot when we got back.

Mishka was sponsored by a group of people: I gave S. some money to help with his neutering, and other sponsors paid for his vet check-up and transportation to a no-kill shelter. Mishka is still waiting for a home.

"It's Halloween, and we've been to hell," S. said to me at the end of the day. We were riding away in a van taxi with the two rescued dogs.

She feels tired after a day at the no-kill shelter where she volunteers, but happy too. It's much different at the city pound, where every visit leaves her feeling emotionally drained. Sometimes she wonders if she should continue.

The pound isn't heated in the winter, and S. is worried about the dogs now that the cold weather is here. As a foreigner, she doesn't want to file a complaint with the city but hopes the local people will insist on changes. This may not be the worst pound in Korea, she said, but a change here would be a step forward.

Before I met K., I'd heard that he was rude and mean. I'd heard he hated foreigners. For what it's worth, he was very friendly to me and S. On the way back from the pound, he offered us packages of red ginseng extract to drink in his van—and when I asked about the ingredients, he proudly described the extraction process. He helped S. practice her Korean, pointing to the different trees as we passed them. Later, with the man who adopted the cocker spaniel, he seemed helpful and professional.

Unlike our colleague who saw K. put a living dog in a garbage bag, S. and I never challenged him or questioned his practices. I wanted to bring a translator with me—I wanted to ask how many animals he takes in per month, how many are adopted, how many die in their cages, and how many he kills. I wanted to ask what efforts he makes to adopt the animals out, why he only spends 15 minutes a day at the facility, and why conditions aren't better.

But after talking with rescuers who need to cooperate with K. to get more animals out, I decided not to risk putting him on the defensive.

Some readers may wonder why they should support animals in Korea when animals everywhere need homes. As Karen Busch said, "A life is a life, if you can save one, do it!"

If she were adopting an animal, Busch said she would choose a local rescue.

"If I didn't already have the connection to Korea, I would only be supporting my local shelter ... The shelters in North America are full, too!"

But Busch feels a strong connection to Korean animals because of the time she spent here, and as administrator of the ARK website she reads every post on the forums. She pointed out a few of the advantages of ARK sponsorship:

"The money I can donate toward sponsoring goes further in Korea where vet costs are cheaper. Also, since I know the people rescuing as ARK members through the site I trust I will receive updates and see exactly how my money is used. I haven't met [S.] in person, but because she shares so many before and after photos, videos and updates I can actually see the difference I'm making in an animal's life. This is not the case if I were to donate to a larger organization in Montreal."

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