ohmidog!

The Chinese government has banned a 600-year-old tradition in the province of Zhejiang — an annual street carnival in which dogs are butchered, cooked and consumed.

Public outrage led to the decision, Xinhua, the official news agency said.

The October dog-eating carnival in Qianxi township commemorates a local military victory during the Ming dynasty in which dogs were slaughtered to ensure they did not bark and alert the enemy, the report said.

According to a Reuters report, dogs are killed and skinned in the streets, partly for tradition’s sake, partly an effort by vendors to show their dog meat is fresh and safe, as a way to ease buyers’ worry that the meat may contaminated.

Opposition to the event — thousands of web users swamped social networking websites to protest the carnival — is just the latest example of evolving sensibilities in China and other Asian countries when it comes to dogs, with dogs becoming viewed less as food source, more as companions.

In April, an impromptu road block by animal welfare activisits and other citizens kept a truckload of 500 farm dogs headed to a slaughterhouse from reaching its destination.

Around 200 people helped block the truck — that’s it in the photo at the top of this post –at a toll booth for 15 hours. Eventually, they were able to negotiate the dogs’ release for $17,000, saving the dogs from being slaughtered and served as food.

(Photo: David Gray / Reuters)

Doggyspace — a Myspace for dogs — has drawn more than 3,000 registered users since it started up in July.

Described as a crossbreed between Facebook  and YouTube, Doggyspace allows dog owners to come together, create profiles, and share photos and videos of their pups.

Based in Virginia, it’s another example of the phenomenal growth in social networking sites that target interest groups looking to connect with like-minded people — pretty much the Internet version of butt-sniffing.

 ”It’s not so much social networking, it’s having a social experience around things that we care about, so pets are just such a great example of that,”  Fred Stutzman, an Internet researcher at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, says in a recent AP article.

Stutzman said people who use general social networking sites are also signing up for sites like Doggyspace that offer more focused support on specific issues. 

In the last month, Doggyspace has attracted more than 3,000 registered users — of which nearly 80 percent are female according to Levi Thornton, founder of the Virginia-based company. Thornton predicts that Doggyspace will have racked up more than two million accounts year’s end.