China: one dog policy in larger cities!

Chow Chow image from akc.org

At one of my previous jobs I had a lot of contact with China, and I was aware of their one child per family policy along with the complications that can ensue for anyone who has more than one child. I did not know many larger Chinese cities also has a one dog per family policy.

According to Yahoo News, citizens in many major cities can only have dogs shorter than 14 inches high when full grown. Each dog must also have a residence permit, and these permits allegedly look a lot like Chinese ID cards. They have the dog's photo, name, sex, and type.

The dog registration is expensive. Yahoo News reports it costs $160 for the first year and $80 per year after that. Failure to register the dog can be even more costly; the fine for an unregistered doggie is a dazzling $800.

This might be a smaller problem in China than it would be here; their culture isn't known for keeping dogs as pets. Times are changing, though, and dog ownership is on the rise. Quite a few dog breeds have their roots in China, like the Chinese Crested, Chow Chow, Pekinese, Pug, Shar Pei, and Shih Tzu.

~ Maria Sadowski