© Provided by AFP A Chinese animal lover consoles a dog after a convoy of trucks carrying some 500 dogs to be sold as meat, were stopped along a highway in Beijing on early April 17, 2011, and the dogs were later rescued to the China Animal Protection Association 
 
 A Chinese woman has paid over $1,000 to save 100 canines from being eaten during a dog meat festival, media said Sunday, as activists have lashed out at the event labelling it cruel. 
 
 Animal-loving Yang Xiaoyun paid about 7,000 yuan (US$1,100) to save around 100 dogs in the southern city of Yulin on Saturday, web portal Netease reported. 
 
 The city holds an annual festival devoted to the animal's meat on the summer solstice, which has provoked an increasing backlash from animal protection activists. 
 
 Reports said that Yang, 65, plans to rehouse the dogs at her home nearly 2,000 kilometres (124 miles) away in Tianjin. 
 
 Pictures posted online showed her browsing a market in Yulin where the dogs were kept in cages. 
 
 © Provided by AFP A vendor waits at a corner of a makeshift dog market in the suburb of Beijing 01 April 2001, with various mongrels in cages for sale to dog meat lovers 
 
 Activists, who say the festival is cruel, have in the past travelled to the city to hold demonstrations, sometimes buying dogs to save them from the cooking pots. 
 
 Locals have been quoted as saying that animals are killed in a humane way for the festival, where their meat is then served with lychees. 
 
 The majority of "meat dogs" in the country are stolen pets and strays, according to an investigation published this month by Hong Kong-based charity Animals Asia, though eating dog is unusual in most parts of China. 
 
 Around 30 million households in the country are estimated to keep dogs as pets, helping to fuel the growing animal rights movement. 
 
 This year the festival has been targeted by British Comedian Ricky Gervais, who posted a series of messages on Twitter with the hashtag "StopYuLin2015". 
 
 The city's government has tried to distance itself from the event. 
 
 "Some residents of Yulin have the habit of coming together to eat lychees and dog meat during the summer solstice," the city's news office wrote on Sina Weibo, a Chinese Twitter equivalent. 
 
 "The 'summer solstice lychee and dog meat festival' is a commercial term, the city has never (officially) organised a 'dog meat festival'," it added. 
 
 Eating dog is not illegal in China, but the government called on meat vendors to respect food safety laws. 
 
 "Yulin is an open, tolerant and civilised city," it said. "We welcome people across the world to pay attention to Yulin." ||||| Dog and cat meat traders at Yulin festival in China have said that business is booming, despite calls for it to close amid animal cruelty accusations. 
 
 It is expected that thousands of cats and dogs will be slaughtered this weekend to mark the summer solstice on Sunday in Yulin, washed down with lycee wine. 
 
 Government officials have ostensibly “banned” the controversial annual Yulin Dog Meat Festival after it attracted protesters and criticism from around the world. 
 
 Some readers may find the below images distressing 
 
 A woman on her moped transports more than 10 dogs, which had just been slaughtered, to her market shop for sale 
 
 However, the slaughter of cats and dogs for meat is not outlawed in China, and the local government in Yulin says it cannot stop legitimate businesses preparing meat in the run-up to this year’s solstice on 21 June. 
 
 In pictures: Yulin meat festival 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 6 show all In pictures: Yulin meat festival 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1/6 Yulin meat festival A man selling live dogs for meat Dog meat for sale at Dongkou Market, Yulin, Guangxi Zhuang, China (Photo by Sipa Asia/REX) 
 
 2/6 Yulin meat festival A dog vendor lifts up a dog to protest against animal rights activists coming to block the local dog meat festival (Photo: EPA/LI KE CHINA OUT) 
 
 3/6 Yulin meat festival Dog meat for sale at Dongkou Market in Yulin (Photo by Sipa Asia/REX) 
 
 4/6 Yulin meat festival Dog meat for sale at Dongkou Market, Yulin (Photo by Sipa Asia/REX ) 
 
 5/6 Yulin meat festival Dog meat for sale at Dongkou Market in Yulin (Photo by Sipa Asia/REX) 
 
 6/6 Yulin meat festival Animal rights activists in Rome try to reach the Embassy of China to protest against the Festival of Yulin, but are blocked by the police (Stefano Montesi/Demotix/Corbis) 
 
 Indeed, it has been reported that business is only getting better for the dog and cat meat traders as the controversy continues. 
 
 Celebrities including Leona Lewis and Ricky Gervais have denounced the festival this week. 
 
 A slaughterhouse butcher transfers a cat to a cage, to be handed off to Peter Li. Shortly after, Li rescued the cat from the slaughterhouse 
 
 Peter Li, animal activist group Humane Society International’s China specialist, visited the market earlier this week and reported: “I saw cat and dog intestines and carcasses strung up. 
 
 “Workers were blow-torching the carcasses to make them shiny and ready for shipment to restaurants. There were some dogs still alive in wire cages, but they looked exhausted, emaciated and dirty.” ||||| BEIJING — In the whirlwind of growth that is modern China, the loss of ancient traditions often provokes dismay and outrage. 
 
 But people across the country cheered recently when officials in eastern China said they were doing away with a 600-year-old local custom: the slaughter of thousands of dogs to be eaten at an autumn festival. 
 
 The Jinhua Hutou Dog Meat Festival, as it is called, was abruptly canceled last week after local officials were shamed by an online campaign begun by animal rights advocates. Gruesome photographs taken at past festivals that show canine carcasses, some bloody and others cooked, circulated on Chinese microblogs, creating popular pressure against the festival, which was set for October. 
 
 Pet ownership has grown rapidly among the Chinese, as has a greater consciousness of animal rights. In the Mao era, the Communist Party condemned pets as a byproduct of bourgeois decadence. But these days, dogs and cats (and all manner of creatures, including rabbits and birds) have become accouterments of Chinese middle-class living. What was once slated for the pantry is now housed in a playpen. 
 
 Photo 
 
 “I once had a pet dog, and I’m not a huge fan of dog meat,” said a 36-year-old man in Guangdong Province who is credited by a Chinese journalist with helping start the campaign against the festival on Sina Weibo, a popular microblog platform. The blogger declined to give his name and agreed to chat only over the Internet. “The reason why I posted that message online is very simple — that is, I don’t want to see dog lovers’ feelings get hurt,” he said. 
 
 Other grass-roots animal-rescue efforts have also gotten results. Last April, a man spotted a truck on a Beijing highway that was packed with more than 500 dogs being shipped to slaughterhouses that supply restaurants in northern China. The man put out a call on the Internet to stop the vehicle, and soon it was blocked by more than 200 people; the crowd rescued the dogs after paying $17,000. 
 
 “I believe China is going through a Chinese animal liberation movement, a bottom-up movement, gaining huge momentum in the past year, very much with the help of the Internet and Weibo, together with the younger generation growing up with cats and dogs as family pets,” Deborah Cao, a professor at Griffith University in Australia who studies animal rights law, said in an e-mail interview. 
 
 The dog meat festival, held in the Wucheng district of Jinhua in Zhejiang Province, is part of an annual three-day temple fair. The dog market has been part of the fair for centuries, according to the district government’s Web site. Local folklore says the tradition of feasting on dogs originated when Hu Dahai, a rebel battling Yuan Dynasty rulers in the 14th century, ordered all the dogs in Jinhua to be slaughtered because their barking had warned rebels in the city of his army’s approach. His soldiers were treated to dog meat, the story goes, and eating dog has been a custom at local temple fairs ever since. 
 
 The Zhejiang Jinhua Daily said in an article on Sept. 20 that the market at the annual temple fair was renamed as a “dog meat festival” about a decade ago to increase business. Traditionally, local people brought cooked dog meat to sell, but that changed in recent years because of talk that some of the sellers had poisoned the dogs. Merchants started trucking in live dogs and killing, flaying and cooking them on the spot to prove that the meat was fresh. A local journalist said at least 5,000 dogs are killed. 
 
 Dog is popular in winter across much of China because the meat is believed to have warming properties. Practitioners of Chinese traditional medicine say that dog meat imbues the eater with energy and strength. 
 
 Microblog posts criticizing this year’s Jinhua festival first appeared early this month. The blogger from Guangdong wrote on Sept. 6: “There are thousands of dog eaters gathering there. People slaughter dogs mercilessly, the blood of the dead dogs flows like a river, the horrible screams of dogs pierce the sky.” 
 
 The outcry quickly gathered momentum. Last week, a few Chinese newspapers wrote editorials. The campaign caught on with celebrities who have millions of microblog followers. The Wucheng district authorities said on Weibo on Sept. 19 that they were canceling the fair. The next morning, they explained the decision was “in full respect of the public’s opinion.” 
 
 Some food lovers are disappointed. One blogger, Gong Wangping, wrote: “I personally think dog meat is like alcohol. They are both components of our ancient Chinese culture.”
– Don't like the thought of dogs being served up with lychees? Neither does Yang Xiaoyun, a 65-year-old Chinese woman who saved 100 canines from being killed and served at a dog-meat festival in southern China, AFP reports. The animal lover paid about $1,100 yesterday for the dogs in the city of Yulin, and plans to take them home to Tianjin, about 1,240 miles away. Her gesture has drawn more attention to Yulin's controversial festival, where activists hold demonstrations, charge animal cruelty, and sometimes buy dogs so they won't get eaten. "I saw cat and dog intestines and carcasses strung up," an activist tells the Independent. "There were some dogs still alive in wire cages, but they looked exhausted, emaciated, and dirty." Locals say the dogs are killed in a humane manner at Yulin's festival, where people eat dog meat with lychees—but the tide in China may be turning against the practice. Roughly 30 million Chinese households are said to have dogs now, while more young people are moving into cities and buying animals for companionship, CNN reports. What's more, the city of Guangzhou—known for serving dogs and cats—just shut down a dog-meat restaurant. But while officials have criticized the Yulin festival, they stop short of imposing a legal ban against the slaughter of cats and dogs. "Yulin is an open, tolerant and civilised city," says the city's news office. "We welcome people across the world to pay attention to Yulin."