SEVERAL videos showing a man abusing dogs have gone viral online over the past few days. Some volunteers of a Shenzhen-based animal welfare organization rescued a dog Monday after they located the man’s address in neighboring Dongguan, Guangdong Pro-vince, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported yesterday.

    One of the videos showed the man shocking a German shepherd with a stun gun, while in another video he pulls open a dog’s bleeding mouth. According to the man’s WeChat chat records, which were posted online, he has tortured and killed about 50 dogs, according to the Daily report.

    He said he had already tortured the dogs in those videos to death, knocking all their teeth out, his WeChat chat records showed.

    According to the chat records, the man, who wasn’t identified, said he had pleasure torturing the dogs. “I felt excited when seeing the dogs in pain,” one of the chat records read.

    The alleged personal information of the suspected man, including his phone number and home address, has been released online by netizens. A reporter for the Daily failed to contact him by calling the number or going to the address Monday.

    “The man said he realized his wrongdoings when we called him,” said a volunteer of the Shenzhen Dog Protection Association (SDPA), identified as Bo Zi. Bo and several other volunteers headed to a residential estate in Dongguan on Monday after contacting the man, but they lost contact with him after they arrived.

    With help from local police they entered an uninhabited apartment on the 18th floor of a residential building and found an injured dog on the balcony with blood on the floor. The volunteers brought the dog back to Shenzhen for medical treatment.

    Another volunteer, surnamed Huang, said the man had attempted to adopt dogs from SDPA several times, but had given up after routine procedures required him to register his information with the association. Huang said the man shouldn’t abuse dogs even if he doesn’t like dogs.

    “Currently, China doesn’t have relevant laws or regulations to punish those who abuse animals,” said Liu Ziru, a Shenzhen-based lawyer.

    He said the Shenzhen city government should consider introducing laws prohibiting cruelty to animals by using the special economic zone’s legislative power.

    (Zhang Yang)