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CEO Jong-man Hwang of MINIPET, a pet shop for dogs and cats

Volunteer and sponsorship activities for animal shelters continued silently for over 10 years

Pet shops under the name dog shelter but mock consumers must be eliminated.

“Building a real animal shelter where our dogs can rest comfortably. That is my dream.”

source - http://www.research-paper.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=187021

Located in Goyang-si, Gyeonggi-do, Bandal’s Dog Shelter is a place for abandoned dogs due to various excuses such as moving, diseases, and financial hardships. Stray dogs trying to avoid the sun in the hot weather by staying in the shade made by volunteers are feebly looking at the world beyond the iron fence, as if they had given up everything in the heat.

11 am. The shelter, which was filled with the rumbling sound of iron bars and the wild reverberation of dogs, was rejuvenated after a long time with the visit of MINIPET volunteers and volunteer pet hairdressers. CEO Jong-man Hwang and employees from pet sales shop MINIPET, Studio Chungah, “My Sister’s” pet beauty shop, Happy Dog Beauty, and beauty volunteer Ji-seon Kim, carried 500kg of feed and 2 tons of drinking water prepared as sponsored goods. "I think I'm doing all my exercise this year here," they jokingly said.

■ Misunderstanding that it is volunteering to show off and blame

500kg of feed and 2 tons of drinking water were donated from this volunteering activity, along with bathing and beauty services for dogs who had been covered by dirt and sweat since the winter. Still, MINIPET’s public volunteering was not that smooth. It was not a problem for volunteering privately, but when the company volunteered publicly for the first time to raise awareness on the situation of abandoned animals, criticisms that it was volunteering to “show off” as an image makeover of a pet sales company flooded.

“Noting that the misunderstandings and criticisms that we were volunteering to show off led to interest in dog shelters and in abandoned animals as well as the adoption of dogs, we decided to let go of our pride for a while. As long as the dogs can find a new haven in a better environment, we are satisfied with it,” said CEO Hwang Jong-man, whose smile shows his genuine care for dogs.

■ Even if others criticize that it is a pet shop, it is a benefactor for our dogs here.

"There was a time when I thought it would be difficult to withstand on my own anymore. Thanks to MINIPET’s sponsorship of supplies and recruitment of volunteers, however, many of our dogs found their forever families, their cages became wider, and they were able to live in a better environment. At that time, our dogs were more important than the fact that MINIPET was a pre-sale shop,” Bandal’s Dog Shelter Director Geum-soon Yu said, recalling the difficult times when more than 100 dogs lived in narrow cages.

According to Director Geum-soon Yu, he did not know that their relationship with MINIPET, which he thought would end with just one or two volunteering sessions, would last for such a long time. “From providing our dogs with a filaria drug and bathing in the summer to installing stoves and cold-proof vinyl in winter, MINIPET’s volunteers are like saviors for our dogs in the shelter. CEO Hwang said, ‘I would cry my eyes out when I see the shelter empty because all of the dogs in the shelter have found their forever families.’ I told him that I’m looking forward to that day.”

■ Working together for life. If we can help.

Studio Chungah, My Sister’s pet beauty shop, Happy Dog Beauty, and beauty volunteer Ji-seon Kim shared their motivation for participating in this volunteering service: "We willingly participated with appreciation that there was something we could do for the abandoned animals”; "At first, I saw some big men working hard and sweating a lot, so I thought they were some kind of sports trainers”; “Nothing has changed even after learning that this service is organized by a pet shop, because the fact that we are all gathered for animals’ life remains the same.”

■ Pet shops that mock consumers under the name of dog shelter must be eliminated first

Recently, cases of damage from “new scams” by pet shops under the name of dog shelter have been coming out continuously. CEO Hwang lamented that this was a typical method of pet selling businesses to avoid liability after pet sales due to the stricter Animal Protection Law. Those businesses would earn profit from the adoption fee and transfer all responsibilities arising thereafter to consumers under the name of sales of abandoned dogs

In fact, the problematic pet shops disguised as dog shelters make consumers believe that dogs from puppy (cat) farms, which are not guaranteed to be healthy due to the loopholes of the law, are abandoned animals. CEO Hwang emphasized that the Animal Protection Act must be strengthened first in order to eliminate the pet shops that deceive consumers, and that it is also important to enable consumers to acquire the right information, not just the information displayed by the pet sale firms.

■ MINIPET's ultimate goal is to build a “real” abandoned animal shelter for dogs to stay comfortable

We asked CEO Hwang about MINIPET's final goal. He said his “dream” is a world without abandoned dogs. Just like he said, however, it is only a dream and is difficult in reality, so he corrected himself, stating that his “goal” was to build a “real” abandoned dog shelter where dogs can stay comfortably. "Rather than a dog shelter that’s used for profit-making, our final goal is to create a dog shelter like a haven where abandoned dogs can stay comfortably before finding their forever families, and an advanced dog shelter where abandoned dogs don't have to fight hunger and fear in the heat and cold. Until then, I will do as much as I can in this place to establish a proper pet adoption culture,” he vowed.