The number of pet dogs in China's major cities is on the rise, bringing both happiness to their owners and some potential headaches to others.

As individual incomes rise, China's city dwellers are developing a liking for pets. Some people have been known to spend up to 1,800 yuan (US$217) on a luxury dog house or 600 yuan (US$72) giving their dogs a fragrant bath.

That enthusiasm has attracted the world's major pet product companies to China, betting zealous owners will shell out for specialty foods, garments and other accessories common elsewhere but still relatively new here.

"China is very much an emerging market," Mike Cusack, a director at Rudducks, an Australian maker of specialized pet shampoos, vitamins and other products told Associated Press.

"As individual families gain more wealth, there's a greater trend toward keeping pets," said Cusack.

Just a decade ago, keeping a pet was still deemed by many as something best left for the rich. In 1995, Beijing municipal authorities legislated the Regulation on the Strict Control of Dog Raising.

Last year, a revised regulation came out.

The new "dog law", hailed by many, dramatically cut the registration and annual management fees, from 5000 yuan (US$604) and 2000 yuan (US$242), to 1000 yuan (US$121) and 500 yuan (US$60) respectively.

As a result, the number of licensed dogs has grown drastically, from 130,000 to the current 410,000, said Han Jinxing, an official with the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau.

"When the old regulations were drawn up in 1995, we meant to control the number of pet dogs for fear that they would cause many problems. But due to the fast economic growth, the number of pet dogs saw a steady and fast increase," Han said.

Many owners still refuse to get licenses for their pets, but some estimates peg the number of dogs in the capital at more than 1 million.

Dog owners are now often middle and low-income earners, including laid-off workers and single, elderly people.

"I live happier since I adopted my dear doggie two years ago," said the proud owner of a poodle.

Dogs and other pets are especially popular with older Chinese empty-nesters in cities where life revolves around family but a strict birth-control policy limits couples to just one child.

"I felt deeply lost when my only daughter went to college far away so I adopted a dog and now I treat her as my other daughter," said a middle-aged woman.

Liu Weiming, head of Beijing Public Security Bureau's canine affairs department, said that a city's capacity for dogs is limited. An excessive number can bring environmental and social problems.

In one apartment building in northwest Beijing, one of the three lifts is reserved for dog owners to ease tension between them and non-dog owners.

Lu Di, a 76-year-old lady who lives alone, kept more than 70 dogs and cats in her three-bedroom apartment in Renmin University of China. Most are stray dogs abandoned by their owners or are sick.

"The population explosion of pets creates many problems that both people and government are not ready to face," the retired professor said.

"How to care for domestic animals is not yet common knowledge, and some new owners who raise a pet on a whim find themselves surprised by the burden of time and money that pets can bring," she said.

Lu, chairman of Chinese Association for the Protection of Small Animals, called on the government to legislate animal welfare as soon as possible because it is a symbol of a civilized country.

The present Beijing Dog Management Regulation bans dog owners from abusing or abandoning dogs but sets no concrete penalties.

(China Daily November 10, 2004)