Jeffrey Beri

Jeffrey Beri is Attacking Animal Abuse in Global Problem Areas

Before Jeffrey Beri found his calling as an animal rights organizer, he had spent most of his career as a mechanical engineer and jewelry designer. In 2016 he pivoted roles to become a full-time animal activist. “I grew up with dogs,” Beri said. “Dogs are man’s best friend and pigs are mutually smart, there are so many animals that are being recklessly slaughtered for consumption, but I have a huge passion for dogs.” Since then, he’s organized heroic efforts that resulted in the saving of 117 dogs from the slaughterhouses in Yulin, China. But that was just the beginning. Soon after, he started No Dogs Left Behind (nodogsleftbehind.com), a nonprofit that works to save, advocate for, rehabilitate, and adopt dogs.

Earning a Dog’s Trust

In a video available on YouTube titled, “Yulin Survivor Iron” you can watch Jeffrey calm down a seemingly violent dog named Iron. Iron is not a violent dog by nature, but an animal that has only known abuse; raised in inhumane conditions for the sole purpose of being consumed during the yearly Yulin dog meat festival. In the video, Jeffrey slowly earns Iron’s trust by providing medical intervention and therapy. Thick leather gloves are needed to protect Jeffrey’s hands from bites, and he must keep Iron at an arm’s length distance. Little by little, as Iron nibbles on his gloves, Jeffrey teaches him to embrace human touch and accept the help that Jeffrey provides. The transformation in the video is a poignant snapshot of just some of the work that Jeffrey and his team put into helping abused dogs. At the end of the video the gloves come off and Iron embraces Jeffrey as he learns to trust humans for the first time.

Following his passion for the arts, Jeffrey studied jewelry making, manufacturing, and marketing, finding a successful career working for the prestigious Jewelry designer David Yurman. While attaining his professional goals, Jeffrey yearned for a deeper sense of purpose. “It got to the point where I wanted to make change, make the world a better place,” Jeffrey said. His passion for animals led him to animal activism.

Animal Rights Crisis in Yulin

After hearing about the horrors of the dog meat trade in Yulin, China, he chose to target the problem at its root. “The dogs in Yulin are beaten, boiled, blow torched, many of them stolen from the streets, stolen from homes,” said Jeffrey. “It’s a type of abhorrent behavior that’s not warranted, that’s why I chose dogs.” The abhorrent treatment of dogs in Yulin doesn’t only occur in the day-to-day operations of livestock farming, but also methodically throughout the culture at large. “A lot of the processes involve how can they torture the dog,” said Jeffrey. “There is a myth in Yulin that torturing the dog will make their meat more tender. They believe eating dog meat will keep you warmer in the winter and cooler in summer, or it’ll keep you healthier or cure impotence in men.”

Rescuing abused dogs for human consumption takes enormous preparation and community organizing. “We have volunteers and activists all over eastern Asia and they work to spot illicit dog slaughterhouses and dogmeat markets,” said Jeffrey. “It then gets passed along through our channels of communication and we gather evidence and wait for the right time to execute.”

Using the Community as his Army

When Jeffrey targets a facility or abusive dog farm, he rallies the community to help. “We’ll go in, surround the place, we’ll have brave activists demand and execute seamless and effective  emergency responses,” said Jeffrey. “We bring in government, police, mayors and villagers, and we showcase what they’ve done, providing evidence of the slaughtering. Then, they demand the sellers show proof of purchase and the health and quarantine certificates for dogs.” At that point, almost always, that information is not able to be provided and the government officials will step in and ask them to render the dogs to the volunteers because the fines will exceed the proceeds of the meat by that point.
After Jeffrey rescues the dogs, his organization begins the long and arduous process of rehabilitation. “Some dogs are so petrified they’ll attack the second you get close to them because all they’ve felt is torture; tubes down their throats, pumped with liquids, break their jaws, slammed into slaughter cages, stuffed into chicken cages,” Said Jeffrey.
The dogs are taken to a quarantine center, then sent to the ‘No Dogs Left Behind’ sanctuaries, where they’re treated and rehabilitated. Treatments for the animals include vaccinations, spaying and neutering, deworming, and flea and tick treatments. “We then adhere to a strict schedule around being fed, going out to park time, working with them to be leash trained, and eventually being able to trust people again. Some dogs we’ve treated for 2 years, some 4 years and they’re still really fearful and scared,” says Jeffrey.

How to Save 10,000 Dogs

Jeffrey is mobilizing his army of community activists and volunteers for the upcoming Yulin summer solstice festival. During the festival, Jeffrey estimates that tens of thousands of dogs are slaughtered at the festival. “We’re fighting to make sure it doesn’t happen and that the slaughters don’t happen during the upcoming festival,”. said Jeffrey. At prior festivals, Jeffrey said he was followed by up to 25 secret police. “They are worried about me, but they don’t have the rights to really detain me,” said Jeffrey. “I think they’re more worried about martyring me because I have so much support from east Asia and globally.”

Jeffrey attributes this to the outpouring of support he garners in East Asia and globally, stating unequivocally, “The support of social media fans and keyboard warriors has been extremely helpful. Our work truly does take a village.”

If you would like to find out more about Jeffrey and his organization, and his work combating the illicit dog meat trade, as well as the efforts made in saving and adopting out rescued dogs, please visit: nodogsleftbehind.com