In China, a dog's life comes into vogue

That attachment can be short-lived, however. Dogs are often abandoned by owners that tire of looking after them or decide they prefer the latest in-vogue breed. "People buy dogs so they can show off. Whichever dog is the most popular, that's what people will go for," says Zhang Luping, who runs a private animal rescue center outside Beijing.

Ms. Zhang, a real-estate developer, takes care of nearly 500 dogs and 200 cats that have been dumped on the streets or rescued from abusive owners. Dog arrivals have surged since news broke of the antirabies campaign, she says. Like many pet lovers, she's skeptical of official tallies of the disease and the justification for canine culls.

The campaign has generated strong online reactions, too, including barbed comments on the political logic at work. "Is there no justice in this world when those poor dogs have to be killed only because of rabies, even if they've already been vaccinated? There are no human rights in China! There are no dog rights, either!" wrote one contributor to Chinapet.com, a website for pet owners .

In additional efforts to curb the spread of rabies in China – which reports a 30 percent increase in cases over last year's figures – 65,000 dogs in Shanghai have been implanted with digital chips. The ID chips contain information about the dog, including its owner's address and the date of its last inoculation.

At a dog market in Liyuan, a suburb of Beijing, breeders say that business has slackened somewhat since the start of the rabies crackdown. But buyers continue to visit the sprawling outdoor market, especially on weekends when thousands of dogs, big and small, pedigreed and mongrel, are paraded for sale in cages or on leashes.

Not all are destined to become household pets, however. In the back of a red pickup truck, a pack of mottled brown dogs are roped together inside a cage. Three men pick one, and agree upon a price with the owners. The dog is leashed and led to a waiting car to be taken to a restaurant and slaughtered for its meat, a common practice in parts of China.

It's a fate that Ms. Yang, who declined to give her first name, is determined won't befall her two small dogs. After anxious weeks of hiding them at home, she has decided to sell them, rather than risk their capture by the authorities. So with a dog scooped in her arms and another on a leash, she waits by the roadside near the market for potential buyers.

Ms. Yang says that the dogcatchers are selling carcasses in her hometown of Tianjin, a coastal city near Beijing. She hugs her 2-month old puppy tight. "I'll feel relieved when they go to a good family, It's better than being beaten to death," she says.

• Material from Reuters was used in this report.

Page: 1 | 2