Dog-spinning – barbaric tradition in Bulgaria

Would you believe, that in civilized Europe of 21st century some people still ward off RABIES by pagan rituals? When SPRING comes, they SPIN DOGS over a river, to scare away the illness…

For hundreds of years, villagers in the south-east Bulgaria (the town of Brodilovo) have practiced this spring ritual and.
In 2006, this savage tradition was banned by law (or actually the guidelines were changed) after animal rights activists set up a campaign to expose the cruelty.

Despite the law change from 2006, “animal rights” activists still occasionally come across villages, where the old-era-people practice the ritual. That’s why, when the season comes, members of Animal Rights Sofia guard the banks of the Veleka River to make sure locals kept to the new guidelines.

The old tradition involved installing two poles on two opposite river banks and stretching a rope between them. Then a dog was rolled into the rope (into a “noose”), the rope was made taut by tilting the poles aside with the dog hanging over the river. Then the Bulgarian villagers would let the dog spin out of control in the untwisting rope, until it tumbled into the water below.
The worst part is that the terrified dog reached such high speeds, that when they landed in the river, they were unable to swim, as they were too dizzy.

New guidelines: The dogs can “only” be thrown into the water so that they can swim to safety on the other side.

Daily Mail (where the information comes from) asked a spokesman for Brodilovo’s town mayor Petko Arnaoudov who said:
“It is not ideal, but it is better than it was. Some of these traditions have taken root over hundreds of years. You don’t change them overnight. You cannot stop a traditional custom with a simple order.’

We hope that the new generation forgets the stupid and barbaric tradition…

Read more: HERE