Animal lovers gathered outside police headquarters in Wan Chai today to file a complaint over the use of police dogs in dispersal operations that involve tear gas, saying the noxious chemical — unpleasant enough to humans — is downright harmful to canines.
The showing was prompted by a scene from Monday’s protest in Yuen Long to commemorate the three-month anniversary of the MTR attack there, which saw a group of men in white shirts indiscriminately beat commuters, journalists, and pro-democracy activists returning home from a rally in Hong Kong Island on July 21.
One moment caught on video and widely shared showed a police dog being led through a tear gas-filled Yuen Long street unprotected, even as its handler was wearing full protective gear.
And what evil is – leave the doggie alone and let it have gas mask. pic.twitter.com/WK1rgoIpsi
— Galileo Cheng (@galileocheng) October 21, 2019
The clip prompted widespread outrage on behalf of man’s best friend, and the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) wrote on Facebook yesterday that they have repeatedly stressed to police that police dogs — with their super-sensitive noses — should not be deployed in areas where tear gas has been fired.
Speaking to reporters outside police headquarters this afternoon, representatives from the SPCA, the Wild Boar Concern Group, and the Hong Kong Scottish Fold Sickness Concern Group, and pro-dem lawmakers Claudia Mo, Jeremy Tam, and Roy Kwong criticized the police for not protecting the police dog, and urged them to avoid bringing dogs to dispersal operations in areas where tear gas has been deployed.
“Everyone knows that animals can’t talk, so we have to speak for them,” Mo said. “Everyone knows that a dog’s sense of smell is a lot stronger than a human’s.”
(And before you ask, yes, there is such a thing as gas masks for dogs — the devices were actually common during the chemical warfare of World Wars I and II.)
But dogs weren’t the only creatures left reeling from the acrid burn of tear gas over the weekend.
Earlier this week video circulated online showing people try to help a pigeon that was apparently gassed on Granville Road in Tsim Sha Tsui on Sunday afternoon.
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