Saving the Chinese Shar-Pei - Evaluation

After reading 'Saving the Chinese Shar Pei' by Pauline Kidd the Justice League evaluated one of the decisions the Chinese government made in the 1950's which was that "Dogs are luxury items and people should be banned from having them".

During the 1950’s, the new communist government of China decided that everyone was to work for the good of the country and not for personal wealth. The government saw dogs as luxury items and banned people from owning and keeping them. Were the Chinese government correct in their opinion?

Reason for - Shreyas

The communist government of China thought of dogs as luxury items.  A reason they thought this is that dogs cost a lot of money to keep. Shar-Pei need to be fed 2 - 3 times a day on wet and dry food and Shar-Pei are particularly prone to a skin condition which would require medication. The government believed that money spent on dogs would have been better used on the people of China.

Reason against - Charlotte

It is known by many people that dogs can be very useful. It is believed that in ancient China the Shar-Pei helped peasants to herd their stocks. Compared to other breeds of dogs the Shar-pei are very strong and have small eyes and small ears which makes them especially useful as hunting dogs as they would not get injured.

Reason for - Joshua

The government believed that looking after and walking a dog would take away from working time, therefore causing people to not produce enough food to sustain their family and others. Keeping a dog was also seen as a distraction from the more important process of work.

Reason against - Alexus

Another perspective is that dogs can be used as warriors in battles because they are strong animals. The Shar-Pei have wrinkles which act as protection, so they don’t get injured when they fight. They also have small eyes and ears which would unlikely get damaged in a fight.

      

Conclusion - Kristy

In conclusion we think that dogs should not have been banned. Dogs would have helped people to keep fit, and they helped provide food and protection. The reasons for banning dogs are weak as dogs could have been fed leftovers and could help the people work more productively, e.g. herding stock. The reasons against banning dogs are strong because dogs, especially Shar-Pei are great hunting dogs that don’t get hurt easily. Shar-Pei’s would help provide families with food and offer protection during battles. These reasons outweigh the negatives of costing money to feed and taking time to train.

We believe our evaluation is extended abstract as we provided evidence, judged the overall support for reasons and objections and made an overall evaluation of the claim. We believe though that we could have extended ourselves by evaluating other decisions the government may have made and looked at other breeds of dogs.