In China, a dog's life comes into vogue

In most cities, taking your dog for a walk in the dead of night could be seen as a personal quirk or a byproduct of insomnia. But in Beijing, it's a sure sign that the city's dogcatchers are on the prowl for illicit mutts. If you don't want your pet to end up in the pen or as protein on someone's plate, it's best to keep a low profile.

Once shunned by communist ideologues as capitalist vermin, dogs have become a firm favorite among China's fast-growing middle class and a status symbol among the well-heeled. A generation raised in one-child families is eager to bond with household pets. In Beijing, the number of registered dogs is up 16 percent this year, to 530,000, but the true dog population is likely far higher, as many animals are unregistered.

The reason is not only to avoid paying a $75 to $125 registration fee. Big dogs – those with a shoulder height of more than 35 centimeters (about 13 inches) – are banned in central Beijing. If you want to own a Labrador or Husky, two popular breeds in China, you run the risk of your prized pet being detained as an illegal breed. But regulations being what they are, some dog owners were prepared to flout them, betting that law enforcers had bigger fish to fry.

All that changed in September, when Beijing declared it was stepping up the fight against rabies, a disease that officials say killed more than 2,500 people last year in China. In July, officials in a rural county in Yunnan Province slaughtered 50,000 dogs to contain an outbreak of rabies. Pet dogs were snatched off the street and clubbed to death or hung. Jining City in Shandong Province followed suit after reported deaths from rabies.

Suddenly, nocturnal walks are all the rage in Beijing. So are extended stays at private kennels and training schools, as owners wait for the canine crackdown to run its course. But even registered dogs that have had rabies shots are said to be at risk, as police stations need to fill their weekly quotas for dog exterminations.

For Frank Fan, it's a familiar sense of dread. As a child growing up in Beijing in the austere 1960s, he befriended a mongrel that a neighbor had brought from the countryside. When dogcatchers prowled the streets with sticks, he sneaked the mutt into the basket of his bicycle and fled. A friend built a secret basement in his house, and Mr. Fan kept the dog as a pet at a time when such decadent frivolities were forbidden.

Earlier this year, after business school and a career as a fund manager on Wall Street, Fan returned to Beijing, together with his two dogs, to open an upscale pet hospital to cater to an expanding market. He says China has changed, and so have attitudes toward animals. "Humans are humans. They need animals as pets, to support them," he says.

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