Chinese police and animal activists intercepted a truck carrying 386 dogs to slaughter at China's annual Yulin Dog Meat Festival.

According to Humane Society International (HSI), several days before the 2022 Yulin Dog Meat Festival started on June 21, the truck was first spotted 500 miles outside the city.

The publication reported that footage taken by the activists showed the moment the Shaanxi law enforcement pulled the truck over on the road, it confirmed that the vehicle was carrying dogs crammed into wire cages.

Activists in China have praised the police for their quick response and said that if all police took this zero-tolerance policy, the country's dog meat trade would come to a stop.

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Lin Xiong, one of the activists who saw the truck being pulled over by the police, said: "They had probably been on the truck for days, dehydrated and starving, many of them with visible signs of injury and disease."

"We could see their petrified faces peering out from the cages and we knew those dogs were headed straight for Yulin slaughterhouses where they would have been bludgeoned to death," Xiong continued.

Xiong said the response of the police was "really impressive," explaining that the driver of the truck was "unable" to prove that he "acquired" and "transported" the canines illegally.

"It was a very tense time for us but thanks to the authorities, these dogs are now safe in police quarantine where they can get food, water, and rest," they continued. "If only all police across China would have such a firm zero-tolerance approach to these dog thieves and traffickers, it would be the end of the dog trade here."

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In their report of the rescue, HSI said that the Yulin Dog Mest Festival began in 2010 to increase declining dog meat sales. While the event can attract thousands of visitors each year, the popularity of consuming dog meat in the country continues to decline.

Per People, the publication also documented opinion polls that show that 72% of citizens in Yulin don't regularly eat dog meat and that the resistance to the practice is now expanding across China.

China's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs officially declared in 2020 that dogs are companion animals and additionally, that same year, two Chinese cities - Shenzhen and Zhuhai - prohibited the consumption of both dog and cat meat.

Peter Li, Ph.D., a China policy expert for HSI which helps rescued dogs, said: "Even though most people in China don't eat dogs, dog-eating hotspots in the south such as Yulin do still exist, and millions of dogs continue to suffer terribly."

"I'm so proud of the Chinese activists who are standing up for these animals, and the police whose response was absolutely vital, because without them these dogs would already be dead on the kill floor of a Yulin slaughterhouse," he added.

Featured image credit: Paul Quezada-Neiman / Alamy.

386 dogs rescued from truck heading to dog meat festival in China