Public radio’s longest-running daily global news program.
©2026 The World from PRX
PRX is a 501(c)(3) organization recognized by the IRS: #263347402.
Dog Thief Down: Vietnam’s pet lovers fight back
Watch GlobalPost’s new short documentary.
HANOI, Vietnam — It’s not easy to be a dog lover in Vietnam. Across the country, they’re tormented by violent gangs that steal pets and sell them to dog meat restaurants. Dog meat is a pricey delicacy in Vietnam and snatching strangers’ pets is almost as lucrative as selling drugs.
The thieves are increasingly brazen. They’re usually armed with blades and tasers. They confront pet owners with a horrible choice: back down or risk death to save your dog.
But many Vietnamese are refusing to back down. In recent years, villagers have formed angry mobs to maim and even kill dog snatchers. They even post their attacks on YouTube as a grisly warning to would-be thieves.
Senior Southeast Asia correspondent Patrick Winn travels to Vietnam to meet with dog thieves and their distraught victims. He meets veterans of the US-Vietnam war who’ve killed dog thieves without remorse. And he encounters a young generation of animal lovers fighting to end the dog meat trade for good.
Filmed by and edited by video journalist Mark Oltmanns.
Patrick Winn, Mark Oltmanns
HANOI, Vietnam — Here in Vietnam, dogs are more than just pets. They’re a delicacy.
And profiting from the nation’s appetite for dog meat, thieves are stealing pets from homes and selling them off for easy money.
Every year, roughly 5 million dogs are served up on Vietnamese dinner plates. Dog isn’t an everyday meal — it’s more like a rare treat. Eating dog isn’t exactly hip, but it’s still popular, especially with the older generation.
Most of the dogs are supplied by poor villagers, who sell off their farm dogs for some extra cash. Until recently, Thailand was also an underground source, smuggling half a million dogs to Vietnam each year. But a 2013 government crackdown on imported dogs hit the market hard. It left Vietnam’s dog meat traders scrambling to find a new source of live canines.
They turned to pets. Almost overnight, stealing dogs took off as a way for petty criminals to score quick cash.
Dog thieves feed a traditional demand for dog-meat meals, but the trade is facing pushback from a new generation that doesn’t see dogs as food. They see their pets as family members, and pamper them like children.
Now, they're fighting back against the thieves who poach their beloved companions.