A dog’s life: we adore our pampered pets
Print Edition
POODLES in pink dresses, Pekinese wearing blouses, a Pomeranian in sneakers — Shanghai’s sidewalks can sometimes seem like fashion catwalks gone to the dogs.
Chinese adore their pet canines, often dressing them up in eye-catching outfits, and nowhere are such furry fashionistas more conspicuous than in China’s commercial hub.
“Pet owners like to dress up their pets, the way they would their own children,” said a woman surnamed Huang as she walked her two fluffy brown poodles, one with a pink bow tie and the other wearing a blue one, through a central Shanghai neighborhood. Or rather they walked her — riding in a baby stroller as Huang pushed.
It’s big business too. At least 40 percent of pet merchants in China sell pet clothing, according to Yourpet Market Research Institute, which studies the country’s huge pet industry.
The industry overall generates sales of around US$17 billion per year and is expected to grow by 20 percent annually, it said in a report last year. “Millennials are becoming the main customers,” it said.
Zhang Jiequn, a psychologist at Shanghai’s Huada Institute of Applied Psychology, said that for many Chinese, pet ownership “is a kind of escape from interpersonal relationships.”
“The pet becomes a projection of the opposite sex for some people who do not find a partner.”
Dog ownership rates have grown along with China’s fast-expanding middle class.
A 2015 survey said there were at least 100 million registered pets in China, with dogs making up the vast majority.
Shanghai has an estimated pet dog population of up to one million.
The high rate of dog ownership prompted the city in 2011 to impose a “one-dog policy,” limiting owners to a single canine to curb noisy barking, waste on sidewalks and dog attacks.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
