ABOVE: The images were condemned by millions of animal lovers around the world / Europics
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ABOVE: The tradition is more than 600-years-old
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ABOVE: 15,000 dogs were due to be butchered and eaten
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ABOVE: The habit of dog eating is traced to a Ming Dynasty legend
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These gruesome scenes of appalling cruelty at the festival - which has been around since the Ming Dynasty - were condemned by millions of animal lovers around the world.
Officials in Hutou, Zhejiang province, eastern China, have called off the mass slaughter next month where up to 15,000 dogs were due to be butchered and eaten over three days.
Shocked visitors to previous festivals reported live dogs to densely crowded into wire cages that they gouged each others' eyes out just trying to stand up.
Animal welfare worker Wang Lingyi from Hangzhou said: "People actually enjoyed killing them in different ways at the festival."
"I've seen the dogs being stabbed, strangled and even beaten unconscious and then thrown into boiling water.
"Some dogs woke up in the extremely hot water and they struggled, but the stall holders kept pushing them, plucking their fur," he added.
One blogger who posted pictures of the cruelty: "On those days, the streets were washed with blood while the air was filled with dogs' desperate howls."
Officials this week bowed to public pressure and ordered villagers to cancel the festival.
A provincial government spokesman told local media: "Some villagers argued that they had emotional attachments to the festival, as it had been passed from generation to generation, while some said it should be listed as the city's cultural heritage."
According to the Austrian Times, the habit of dog eating is traced to a Ming Dynasty legend when a general tried to invade a city late at night, but was thwarted when local dogs barked to raise the alarm.
The general killed all the dogs in the area and when the troops finally conquered the city, they celebrated by eating the dog.
Source : dailystar.co.uk
