South Korea's ex-president hounded over dogs left at Blue House

[March 16, 2017]  By Jeongeun Lee

SEOUL (Reuters) - A South Korean animal rights group has filed a complaint with police against former president Park Geun-hye for abandoning nine pet dogs in the presidential Blue House after being dismissed from office.

The dogs are Jindos, a Korean breed of hunting dog known for their loyalty.

Park left the Blue House presidential complex on Sunday, two days after the Constitutional Court removed her from office over a corruption scandal involving big business and financial favors.

She returned to her private home in the upmarket Gangnam district of the capital, Seoul.

Some neighbors there had given Park a pair of Jindos in early 2013, when she left for the Blue House. The pair had seven puppies in January this year.

The Busan Korea Alliance for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said on its Twitter account it had filed a complaint against Park on a charge of animal abandonment.

The Blue House said Park had left the dogs partly because it would not be good for the puppies to be uprooted from their home and denied they had been abandoned.

"She told Blue House staff to take good care of the dogs and to find good foster homes for the puppies if necessary," said a Blue House spokesman, Kim Dong-jo.

South Korea's former president Park Geun-hye's pet dogs are seen in this handout picture provided by the Presidential Blue House and released by News1 on December 24, 2015. The Presidential Blue House/News1 via REUTERS

Another animal rights group, Coexistence of Animal Rights on Earth, said it was willing to care for the animals and find them homes.

"We want to help these dogs so that they won't be adopted thoughtlessly or end up in dog shelters,” the group said in a statement.

The Jindos are native to Jindo Island off the southwest coast of the Korean peninsula.

(Writing by Jack Kim; Editing by Robert Birsel)

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