Many animal protection groups are trying to help puppies by using National Puppy Day.

Internationally, March 23rd is National Puppy Day.

Due to the proposal by pet zoologist Colin Page, National Puppy Day aims to improve awareness and love for puppies and promote their adoptions.

On March 23rd of 2023, animal protection groups such as the ‘Korea Animal Rights Advocates’ held events in hopes of lowering the usage of dog meat, pet shops, and dog farms.

Furthermore, many other Korean companies also held promotional events celebrating National Puppy Day.

From March 21st to April 20th, LG announced donating one percent of its profits from air purifiers to abandoned dog facilities.

To spread awareness of National Puppy Day, Naver created new content that allows users to check helpful information on National Puppy Day.

Kakao also started its  own donation campaign, and HAZZYS, a casual apparel brand that uses an English Pointer dog as its product logo, also held an event to expand Hazzys' apparel line to dog apparel. 

A culture more considerate of puppies has been established than in the past. 

However, Korea is still not a society that is entirely safe for puppies.

Some puppies live as family members in this small country, receiving plenty of love from their owners.

In contrast, some puppies spend their entire lives in dirty and poor illegal dog breeding farms and end up as dog meat. 

According to a survey conducted in 2021, the number of domestic pet owners reached 15 million; statistically, every one in four families lives with a pet.

Assuming half of the pet owners are dogs, about 7.5 million people live with dogs.

The problem is that their owners abandon many puppies for various reasons.

There are no official statistics on how many puppies are abandoned nationwide yet.

Only some municipalities have partial statistics.

For example, over the past three years, more than 4,000 stray dogs have been sent to animal shelters in Gwangju.

However, since the current legal protection period for abandoned dogs is only ten days, abandoned dogs go through a 10-day adoption notice period after entering the shelter.

And if a new guardian does not appear, mostare euthanized after this period.

A few days ago, Marcia Donner Abreu, the Brazilian ambassador to Korea, adopted Nico, an abandoned dog.

The city of Seoul announced on the 24th Ambassador Abreu adopted Nico after going through adoption counseling, meetings, and walks to show how well abandoned dogs could be treated.

Nico, who has been given the new name 'Nico Maria Donner,' will live in the residence of the Brazilian embassy.

After being abandoned, Nico was on the brink of being euthanized, because his ten days were almost over.

However, unlike Nico, not many dogs get adopted, thus resulting in most of them being euthanized.

Dog protection organizations hope to lower this number over the next few years by utilizing National Puppy Day.

SeokJun Kim
Grade 11
Woodberry Forest School