For many older Vietnamese, dog eating is an essential part of traditional Vietnamese cuisine and can coexist with pet ownership without contradiction, according to an August 4 report in the Bangkok Post. 

There is also no apparent concern for the fact that dogs that end up on the dinner table are traditionally beaten to death.

"We never kill our own dogs for their meat. Here I'm eating in a restaurant so I don't care which dogs they killed or how," Pham Dang Tien, 53, told reporters, as he chewed contentedly on a piece of boiled dog in a packed restaurant.

Dog meat is good for health and virility, Tien believes. He sees no conflict between his monthly dog-meat binges and owning a dog. In fact, he boasts that his family has had a string of beloved pet pooches over the course of 20 years, the Bangkok Post reports.

“Typically, Vietnamese eat dog meat at the end of the lunar month to get rid of bad luck. That's what business people often do", said 30-year-old Hoang Giang, Hanoi restaurant owner and a specialist dog-meat chef. Dog is served in a range of ways--from boiled to barbecued--often with shrimp sauce, rice noodles and fresh herbs, he explained.

 

In post-war Vietnam, the government strictly controlled ownership of dogs. But as the economy and living standards of Vietnam improve and the popularity of keeping pets in homes rises, more and more young people feel like 16-year-old Nguyen Anh Hong, who told the Post, "I just don't understand how people can eat dogs -- they are lovely pets.”