These pooches may be hoping dog meat never catches on in North America. Spectator File Photo

This man-bites-dog story is a little different. This is more of a man-"eats"-dog story.

In North America, men and women don't generally bite dogs and certainly don't eat them. They pamper them and pick up their leavings with plastic bags or special scoopers, often carrying them around for blocks until they can dispense with them.

Most of us here would gag if we were to learn that the meat we were eating came from a dog.

And the dogs would be completely baffled. "Hey, first, you pick up my poop and save it, which I never asked for. But, don't get me wrong, I'm flattered. Now you're planning to serve me with some fava beans and a nice Chianti. I don't get it."

But apparently in certain parts of Asia it is commonplace to see the skinned carcass of a dog hanging from a market stall.

Now, if the e-mail I received last week is on the level, there is a new dog-meat store opening on Jane Street in Toronto. And it supposedly features kennels where the dogs who furnish the dog meat are very well-cared for, at least until they become part of the menu.

In his e-mail, Kim Daewoo of the Kim Daewoo Dogmeat Company in Seoul, Korea (with a branch in Zurich and now Toronto), calls his business the "World Cup dog meat supplier." Apparently the Kim Daewoo Dogmeat Company building is very near the soccer stadium in Seoul.

Who knows? We receive so many outlandish e-mails at The Spectator -- as I'm sure you do if you have e-mail at work or even at home -- that you don't know when anyone's being serious anymore.

I am constantly being invited to have my penis enlarged; to meet overseas teenage nymphomaniacs; to enjoy orgasms of such force that they would basically send me flying around the room like a balloon from which the air is being released.

Recently, I was asked on several occasions to place into one of my Canadian bank accounts the $25-million fortune of an African widow whose five-star general husband has been killed in a coup and who must find some offshore shelter for her money. You may have also received this one. It has been making the rounds.

But the dog-meat e-mail has to be one of the very strangest.

It is written in a kind of Charlie Chan English of comically shattered grammar, mis-used words and overly literal translation of the original language, in this case, I assume, Korean.

It is written so much in this style that it sounds like a parody. But it's hard to tell.

It starts: "Honoured journalist!" Clearly Kim Daewoo does not understand our culture, or is pretending not to. I mean, such an oxymoron -- honoured journalist.

Here's more. He's telling us about his Web site and writes:

"You can convince yourself also with dogmeat.org of how animal-loving we hold our dogs. Particularly before summer holidays is our service very animal-friendly that one can deliver unwanted animals and do not have to leave them on the motorway, for example. With us there are only happy dogs!

"As a special attraction for our small friends, a funny play with arrows and boxes is hidden on dogmeat.org. Do you find it?"

Oh, happy dogs. I went to the Web site and you can order meat -- and sell your own dog to the company -- over the Internet. There's a picture at the bottom of the home page -- it shows three cows standing up each holding a sign -- one reads EAT, the next MORE, the third DOG. There are recipe suggestions -- for dog soups, dog roasts, dog steak.

What's next? German Shepherd's pie? Great Danish? Chow-chow chow with a side of collie-flower? Cream of wheaton terrier?

Is this, to borrow a phrase from the Winston Churchill-like bulldog in that old commercial, "dog food's finest hour?" (And by dog food, I don't mean food for dogs, but dogs for food.)

I don't know what repulses us so much about the thought of eating "man's best friend." After all, it's a sliding scale. Most of us don't eat horse meat. Yet many of Dutch background consider it a delicacy.

And, let's be honest, none of us really wants to know what finds its way into our fast food, our sausages and the substances that are so suspect they cannot be called meat but "meat product."

The Kim Daewoo Web site talks about "stupid prejudices." Maybe so. But they could be hard to overcome.

I remember when the Charlton Heston character in the sci-fi movie Soylent Green makes the connection between the scarcity of senior citizens and the savoury green biscuits the government is trying to push on the population.

He cries out, in shocked agony:

"It's people!!!"

In the Golden Horseshoe, how long before we look at the snacks we've grown so fond of and realize to our horror: "It's beagle!!!!"

Yes, toasted sesame seed beagle. With cream cheese on top. Not bad.

Seoul food.

You can contact Jeff Mahoney at jmahoney@hamiltonspectator.com or 905-526-3306.