President and Mrs. Yoon appear on TV with 5-month-old retired service dog they adopted
How they came to have 11 pets… “Adopting a dog after a miscarriage…Yoon forgot his pain”

President Yoon Seok-yeol and his wife, Kim Gun-hee, made a surprise appearance on the SBS program “TV Animal Farm” on Monday with their retired guide dog, “Saerom,” whom they adopted last December. On the program, the couple greeted the audience, “Hello, I’m Yoon Seok-yeol, dad to Sarom, Marie, Sunny, and Tori,” and “I’m Kim Gun-hee, the children’s mom,” and encouraged the adoption of stray dogs.

President Yoon Seok-yul and his wife Kim Gun-hee relax with Sunny and her retired guide dog Sarom (L) after a ceremonial tree planting to open the Yongsan Children’s Garden in the front yard of the presidential office in Yongsan, Seoul, Thursday. /Yonhap

The SBS program “TV Animal Farm” released a photo of the Yoon family and their dog Sae-Rom, who lives at the presidential residence in Hannam-dong, Seoul, in a broadcast this morning. Sae-Rom is a retired guide dog for the blind and was adopted by the Yoon family as their 11th pet on Christmas last year.

“Hello, Sarom’s dad, Marie, Sunny and Tori’s dad, Yoon Seok-yeol,” President Yoon said. “I’m their mom, Kim Gun-hee,” said Mrs. Kim스포츠토토.

“When I was a candidate, I went to a guide dog school in Yongin, and I said, ‘If I get elected (to the presidency) and go to the official residence with a yard, I want to have a retirement guide dog,'” President Yoon explained, “and we adopted him into our family on Christmas Day last year. “All the dogs and cats like him a lot more (than my mom),” Kim said.

President Yoon then laughed, saying, “(Mrs. Kim) likes to train, so she’ll do right paw, left paw, and so on, and if I don’t feed her and keep training her, she’ll run to me and just ask for it.”

The broadcast also featured footage of Yoon in the kitchen preparing food for the dogs, saying, “It’s good enough for me to eat,” and “Saerom eats slowly.”

The program also revealed how the couple decided to have so many pets. In addition to Sae-Rom, the Yoon family currently has five dogs, Tori, Narae, Mari, Sunny, and Ollie, and five cats, Sae-Rang, Butterfly, Yellow, Kiwi, and White, totaling 11 pets. When asked about the reason for having so many pets, President Yoon couldn’t answer, saying, “Well, I don’t think there’s any particular reason…”

“That’s actually something I have to tell you,” said Mrs. Kim, explaining, “He had a child and then lost him, and it was very difficult for him psychologically, but when he adopted a stray dog, he liked it so much, and he forgot about the pain for a while because he thought about feeding the children.”

“Originally, I was supposed to be a temporary caretaker for the dog, but after a day, I realized I had to keep it,” she said, adding, “It just kept growing because of him.”

“There are a lot of dogs that serve special purposes, and since they serve the country and society, I think it’s right that the country and society should pay for a certain part of their medical treatment,” Yoon said, “so that it’s easier for them to be adopted and accompanied.” When asked if they would come up with a policy within their term, they replied, “We will try.”

At the end of the program, Yoon and his wife encouraged viewers to adopt stray dogs, saying, “Don’t buy, adopt.”