The dog meat trade is illegal but Vietnam has so few resources that they pick and choose which battles to fight. I find it horrible when a dog goes missing and even more horrible that people would willingly eat something they know was someone's pet. The legal dog-meat trade isn't that bad because dogs are raised like pigs or cows would be, which isn't great but at least they were never someone's pet. These dogs are raised specifically for meat and it isn't very popular anyway. I've only ever seen a dog restaurant once and of course, didn't eat there.