Arguments ensue among those living in the city and the people who condemn the tradition. "Don't you eat beef? If you stop eating beef, then we'll stop eating dog meat," yells one man frustrated with the intense media scrutiny in the Dong Kou open market, where an array of birds, snakes, cats and livestock are sold as daily fresh fare.

(CNN) -- Packed tight into wire baskets -- sometimes 20 or more to a cage -- animal rights activists say as many as 200,000 live dogs every year are smuggled from northeast Thailand across the Mekong River destined for restaurants in Vietnam.

Dehydrated, stressed, some even dying of suffocation on the trip, the dogs are often stacked 1,000 to a truck on a journey that lasts for days.