‘Get rid of your dog or we’ll come round and kill it’: Chinese village committee criticised over threat to pets

A village committee in eastern China threatened to come to people’s houses and kill their dogs if they did not obey a ban on keeping the pets, according to a news website report.

The threat was made in a public notice issued by the committee in the dayang new district in Jinan in Shandong province, Sinanews reported.

The notice said the ban was partly enforced in the interests of public hygiene.

“People need to ‘handle’ their own dogs by September 10, otherwise the village committee will assign people to get into their house to kill the dogs,” the notice said.

Some villagers were often disturbed by dogs barking during the night, the report said, but some dog owners said they had followed all legal procedures required to own the pets and the village committee had no right to impose the ban.

The public security bureau in the area said the village committee would be committing an offence if it tried to force its way into people’s homes.