Dog spinning
ritual practiced in Bulgaria
Dog spinning (Bulgarian: тричане на куче(та), trichane na kuche(ta)) is a ritual that was traditionally practiced on the first day of Lent in the village of Brodilovo in southeastern Bulgaria. The ritual is thought to have pagan origins
and was performed in order to prevent rabies.
In dog spinning, a dog is suspended above water on a rope. The dog is turned repeatedly in a given direction to wind the rope, or is inserted into a loop of rope that has been twisted already. The dog is then released so that it spins rapidly in the opposite direction as the rope unwinds, and falls into the water once the rope has run out.
History
Historically the ritual was performed in many other parts of Bulgaria as well and although the exact practice varied regionally, e.g. whipping or beating the dogs instead of spinning them, it was performed on the same date and with the same goal. Reports of this type of ritual can be found as early as 1869.
Animal welfare concerns
The Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet reported protests at the Bulgarian Embassy in Stockholm about the cruelty of this tradition. These occurred as Bulgaria prepared to join the European Union in 2005.
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This entry incorporates text from “Dog spinning” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.