It feels like a fortress, where surveillance is constant, and suspicion lingers in the air. CCTV is everywhere, unfamiliar faces are quickly noticed, and every journey through the city carries a quiet tension. It is an environment designed to make outsiders feel they do not belong, especially those who have come to challenge what happens in the city

Many people believed that the COVID-19 pandemic would mark a turning point for China’s dog meat trade. As global attention focused on the risks associated with wildlife markets, China’s Ministry of Agriculture took the significant step of recognising dogs as companion animals rather than including them in its official catalogue of livestock. To many, it appeared to signal the beginning of the end.

The move followed years of growing opposition and mounting international pressure. Graphic images and investigations from events such as the Yulin Dog Meat ‘Festival’ had exposed the reality of the trade to millions around the world. Public outrage intensified as footage showed terrified dogs crammed into cages, transported across provinces and slaughtered in full view of onlookers.

Yet the optimism proved premature, with the reality very different.

The trade has not disappeared. It continues, hidden in plain sight. Under the watchful eyes of the city, dog meat traders and restaurants continue to operate openly, serving an industry that has drawn international condemnation for decades. What many would expect to be hidden is instead woven into everyday life, a stark reminder of just how deeply embedded the trade remains.

Despite mounting evidence gathered through investigations and rescue operations, the existence and scale of commercial dog meat farms remain disputed by some officials.  Yet through years of frontline rescue missions, including those carried out this year, NoToDogMeat has documented a network of breeding facilities, holding sites, transport routes and slaughterhouses, many of which operate with little transparency.

Dog meat farms continue to operate throughout the Yulin region, but locating them is far from straightforward. The work is fast-paced, unpredictable and carries significant risk. Rescue teams often have only a narrow window of opportunity before security is heightened and access becomes far more difficult.

Finding a farm once does not mean you will find it again. Increased security should never be mistaken for closure. Routes change, access points are blocked, surveillance intensifies, and those involved become increasingly cautious. The farm may still be operating exactly as before, but it has simply become harder to reach and even harder to document.

Just a few miles outside Yulin City, beyond the gaze of most of the world, a dog meat farm continues to operate.

Reaching it was a battle. Torrential rain had turned the ground into thick mud, forcing us to scramble through dense bushes and slippery undergrowth, every step becoming more treacherous than the last. It felt as though the landscape itself was trying to keep the horrors hidden.

Then, the farm came into view.

Nothing prepares you for what waits on the other side.

The first thing that overwhelms you is the smell. It clings to your clothes and fills your lungs, a suffocating mixture of waste, decay, damp concrete, and fear. Then comes the noise. Dogs crying, barking, whimpering, and falling silent as exhaustion takes over. Wire cages stretch before you, many rusted and overcrowded. Thick, heavy chains around the necks of the dogs. Eyes follow your every movement. Some plead. Some have already given up. Mothers lie protectively over the puppies they have left, while others carry unborn litters that will never know anything beyond this place. It is not only a place where lives end. It is a place where hope has been systematically stripped away long before death arrives.

Every instinct tells you to turn away, to shield yourself from the suffering unfolding before your eyes. Yet their stories deserve to be witnessed.

You fight to contain the anger rising within you, yet you know that anger alone will not save the souls before you.

You tell yourself not to meet their eyes, but you cannot look away. Every one of them deserves to be seen. Every life deserves compassion, dignity, and love, even if all you can offer in that moment is a glance that says, “I see you. You matter.”

You are here now. You cannot undo what they have endured, but you can bear witness. You can tell their stories. You can fight for those who have no voice.

Two desperate mothers.

One lies beside the few puppies she has left. Five of her litter have already been slaughtered. She stays close to those who remain, powerless to protect them, her fear evident in every movement.

Nearby, another mother is heavily pregnant. She has been condemned to an endless cycle of breeding, surviving on little more than rotting rice, existing only to produce litter after litter. Here, motherhood is not cherished. It is exploited. These mothers are not commodities. They are not breeding machines. They are not disposable.

They are sentient beings who know fear, who know love, who know the instinct to protect their babies.

And they deserve the chance to know something else too:

Freedom.

Her puppies have not yet taken their first breath, yet their fate has already been decided. They will be born into a world that has no place for them, destined either to be slaughtered or discarded among the other dogs if they are too weak to survive.

The male dogs are rounded up and sent for slaughter at dawn, not only at the markets, but also all year round across the region.

The farm owner knows exactly who we are and why we have come. Rescue organisations are not welcome here. Negotiations are tense, unpredictable and heavily weighted against the dogs. To the owner, they are commodities with a monetary value. To us, they are lives worth fighting for.  Removing a live dog from Yulin is exceptionally difficult and prohibited. For rescue organisations, bringing a surviving dog, particularly one indigenous to the Yulin region, to safety is about far more than saving a life. Each dog becomes living evidence that these facilities continue to operate, challenging claims that the commercial dog meat trade has disappeared.

The farmer refuses Julia access to the property, leaving the team with few options. Mr Zhao returned alone, appealing to the farmer’s compassion and pleading for mercy for the dogs. He asked for nothing more than the chance to save a few lives.

The answer was no.

With direct negotiations at a standstill, the team had to change its approach. Every conversation, every phone call and every decision had to be carefully considered. Using different points of contact and people posing as prospective buyers, they slowly reopened a line of communication. Against the odds, NoToDogMeat secured the release of several male dogs and, most importantly, the two mothers. One who lay beside her surviving puppies. The other, who was heavily pregnant, was carrying lives that had not yet begun.

Returning to the farm was no longer an option. Instead, the handover was arranged at another location, nearly two hours away, hidden down a narrow back alley in an area known for the buying and selling of dogs.

It was a place where the trade unfolded in plain sight. Trucks arrived and departed throughout the day, packed with dogs destined for different buyers. Dogs were loaded, unloaded and traded as though they were no different from sacks of grain or crates of produce. For those involved, it was business. For the dogs, every transaction brought them one step closer to slaughter.

This was the place where hope and horror collided.

Within hours of her rescue, in the early hours of 21 June, the heavily pregnant mother went into labour and gave birth.

The timing could not have been more significant.

Had she given birth while still in the hands of the dog meat trader, it is highly unlikely she would ever have been released. Instead, she welcomed her puppies into safety rather than captivity. For the first time, both mother and pups were given something that had seemed impossible just hours earlier: a future.

The road to recovery is long. Rescue is merely the beginning.

For the dogs, healing from unimaginable trauma would take months, perhaps years. But even after the rescues were complete, the danger facing the team was far from over.

Some time later, while documenting dog meat restaurants in downtown Yulin, the team realised they were being followed. The restaurants were noticeably busier than they had been the previous year, a sobering reminder that the trade was far from over. Hours later, they returned to their vehicle to discover that two of the tyres had been deliberately slashed.

The intimidation did not end there.

For their own safety, the team was forced to split up. When Julia returned to her accommodation, she was told she had to leave immediately. The intention was to detain her for questioning. With little time to think, Julia gathered her belongings and made a swift exit.

For the next few days, there was no hotel room, no opportunity to rest and no sense of security. Instead, the team slept in their vehicle as they began the long and perilous journey back to base, carrying not only the weight of what they had witnessed but the constant awareness that the danger had not yet passed. It was a stark reminder that exposing the trade carries risks far beyond the rescue itself. For organisations like NoToDogMeat, the danger does not end when the dogs are brought to safety. In many ways, it follows them long after they leave the farm behind.

The journey back to base is long and exhausting, but every mile places more distance between the dogs and the lives they have left behind. With the new rescues safely in tow, the team stops at a secure location to let them stretch their legs, drink fresh water, eat a proper meal and, perhaps for the first time in a very long while, experience a moment without fear.

These mamas now have a chance, but recovery does not happen overnight. It will take time, patience and unwavering compassion for them to discover what it truly means to live as a dog should. To wake each morning knowing their babies are safe. To nurture them without fear. To rest without wondering if each day will be their last.

The road ahead will be filled with veterinary care, health checks, nutritious food and rehabilitation. Just as importantly, it will be filled with kindness, gentle hands and the opportunity to learn that not every human brings harm. Day by day, they will begin to replace fear with trust, survival with living, and uncertainty with hope.

For the first time, their future is no longer defined by the dog meat trade, but by the chance to simply be a mother and raise their puppies in safety.

Let me end this blog by saying this. Frontline rescue is often very different from how many people imagine it. Behind every photograph of a dog carried to safety are days of surveillance, dangerous negotiations, long journeys, sleepless nights and significant personal risk. It is work that rarely makes headlines but demands an extraordinary commitment from the small rescue organisations carrying it out.

NoToDogMeat believes meaningful collaboration is essential if more lives are to be saved. Rescue is not a competition. Every opportunity, every contact and every available resource has the potential to save another dog. When organisations work in isolation or are reluctant to share information and resources, those opportunities can be lost. In the end, it is the dogs that pay the price.

For the teams working on the ground in Yulin, success is not measured by publicity or social media reach. It is measured by the number of dogs that leave alive.