The Chinese Dogtrine

AS CHINA CONTINUES its metamorphosis from one-time agricultural backwater to high-tech superpower, the speed and depth of change can lead to surprising juxtapositions. A white-haired man in a fraying Mao suit, taking a caged songbird for a walk along the edge of a six-lane highway packed with electric BYD cars, is an example.

It’s not only people who are caught in the liminal space that the country’s transformations have engendered but the dogs too. As these animals transition from warming winter soup to man’s best friend, unpacking the nation’s fluid relationship with canines is as revealing of demographic, economic and cultural trends as any management consultancy report.

A major shift in the ontological status of pooches occurred in April 2020 when the Ministry of Agriculture re-designated dogs from “livestock”—or animals that can be bred to provide food—to “companion animals”, or furry friends to play with. In practice, dogs had a dual-status for some decades—a side-effect of China’s post-Mao ‘reform and opening up’ policies. Once pets were no longer banned as bourgeois affectations, their popularity began to grow almost as astronomically as China’s export figures.

In the early years of the millennium, there was already a clear distinction both physically and conceptually between cai gou—literally ‘food dogs’—bred in dog farms to be eaten, and the little Pekinese with pink bows in their hair that served as surrogate children to the nation’s growing number of retirees.

Today, according to the State Council Information Office, there are over 51 million pet dogs (and 65 million pet cats) in urban China. In other words, about one in eight Chinese people owns either a dog or a cat. The list of officially recognised “new professions” published every year by China’s Ministry of Labour and Social Security includes occupations like “veterinary weight loss trainer” and “pet fashion designer”. And there is some serious splurging going on when it comes to four-legged companions. According to research firm Acuity, the average dog owner spends between RMB 4,000-6,000 ($550 to 850) annually just on food and standard medical checkups.

There are now twice as many new pets as newborns in China, and some sociologists have even voiced concerns that the increasing number of pets may be contributing to the decline in population growth rates. A puppy is easier and cheaper than a baby for many women and does not need a husband to bring up either.

Given China’s worrying demographics it is perhaps unsurprising that although the One Child Policy has long been relaxed, a One Dog Policy remains in place in Beijing and other major cities. Moreover, to qualify as pets, canines in the capital must be below 35cm in height. These restrictions vary between cities and have at times caused pushback from residents. Changzhou, a city close to Shanghai, for example, rolled back its one-dog policy in 2017, following a public backlash.

Since arriving in Beijing last week, I have seen pooches being pushed about in prams and strapped to the chest in baby carriers in the swankier parts of the city. While in the old hutong area, I spied an instance of Chinese jugaad at its best: a poodle owner had enveloped his pet’s paws in four individual booties fashioned out of plastic bags. The idea being to remove the wrapping once the dog was back home, ensuring that no dirt from the streets got inside.

A swanky residential compound that I went apartment hunting in had a large sign at the entrance painted with a dolorous-looking hound and the words ‘Dogs as Civilised’ printed below. By the newly spruced up Liangma riverside promenade there are now ‘pet toilets’ every few hundred metres into which owners must deposit all dog waste, and public service announcements urging “civilized pet upbringing” abound, with graphic pictorial representations of poop-a-scooping.

The idea of Chinese eating dog meat has always horrified (and titillated) foreigners. The fairness of censuring a culture for their gastronomic preferences apart, as many Chinese embrace their inner bourgeois, the popularity of dog as food—usually eaten in the winter for its purportedly warming properties—is waning.

Two cities, Shenzhen and Zhuhai, have successfully implemented complete bans on the consumption of dog and cat meat. And even in places like Yulin, a city in Guangxi province that has become infamous for its annual dog meat festival, a new consumer survey revealed that an overweening majority of residents (87.5 per cent) never, or rarely, eat dog meat.

But life for a dog, especially in smaller towns and less regulated areas, is not quite a walk in the park either. Although numbers are difficult to confirm, it is estimated by animal rights groups that about 10 million dogs are still slaughtered every year for their meat.

Moreover, the legacy of Mao-era dog-extermination programmes casts a shadow that persists. Between the 1950s and late 1970s, canines were seen as a threat to public hygiene and were routinely, often brutally, executed by mobs. Even the new China of glittering malls and coffee shops hasn’t totally rid itself of such tendencies. During the SARS epidemic of 2003, unfounded fears that dogs might be carriers of the virus led to hundreds of animals being rounded up and put to death.

There was less of a knee-jerk, anti-dog reaction during the Covid pandemic. However, ever so often when a dog attack comes to light, it provokes vigilante retribution. In 2023, a two-year-old girl was mauled by a Rottweiler in Chengdu. The owner of the dog was promptly arrested but incidents of random retaliatory violence against dogs also came to light.

In the aftermath, Shandong, Jiangxi and Hubei Provinces announced that captured stray dogs would be put down if an owner could not be found. But officials in Hohhot, in Inner Mongolia, attempted to calm a growing outcry about what people were deeming unwarranted animal cruelty by reassuring them that rounded up dogs would not be killed but sheltered.

As in India, in China there is now a stark divide between those who take every dog-related attack as proof for the need to exterminate strays and a cohort of urban, middle-class animal lovers who insist on a more humane approach. There are increasing examples of anti-dog regulation rollbacks by local governments, spotlighting the nascent but growing clout of the latter demographic.

China has been quite successful in controlling rabies. At an estimated 40 million, China’s stray dog population is huge. In 2020, Beijing reported only 202 human rabies cases nationwide—all in the countryside—down 94 per cent compared to 2007 when 3,300 cases were reported. The incidence of rabies infections in humans has been steadily declining In China, by 20 per cent annually.

There is no magic bullet that China has up its sleeve to combat rabies. But widescale vaccinations of stray dogs in cities are usually well-implemented. There is also much better infrastructure for dog shelters than in India. Nonetheless, the country currently lacks a unified set of cohesive laws on strays, leading to regional variations and ad hoc actions, with vaccination rates in rural areas well below par.

Growing disparities frame a lot of the analysis surrounding contemporary China. It’s no surprise then that for canines as well, there is an increasing distinction between the ‘haves’, and the ‘have-nots’. For some dogs, life is one long spa-treatment. For others, it’s nasty and short.

caninesChinese societyfoodpamperedpets‘pet toilets’