Jimmy Chew to Vera Wag
January 28th, 2008 Posted in Pets Guide The latest bakery to open in one of Hong Kong’s prime
residential areas, Happy Valley, is perfectly positioned to catch
passing trade.
The gleaming counter displays mouth-watering pastries, cookies
and cakes as the smell of food lovingly prepared by resident chef
David wafts from the giant ovens into the street.
But the target customers of this particular bakery, even the
biggest, cannot always see the goodies on the shelves - although
their barking indicates they can definitely smell them.
Three Dog Bakery is the latest effort to provide a further level
of pampering for Hong Kong’s four-legged friends in this pet-mad
city.
Most of Hong Kong’s seven million people live in tiny cramped
apartments and dogs are banned from many city parks but
nevertheless the animals have become a must-have accessory and are
treated accordingly.
“People consider their dogs as an extra member of the family,”
said Brent Earles, general manager of Three Dog Bakery, which is an
international franchise based in the United States.
“If your dog is your companion or surrogate child there are
people who will go and spend a lot of money on their dogs.”
The range of options is endless. Around Hong Kong dogs are
dressed in elaborate costumes, expensive collars and even pushed
around in strollers if walking gets a bit too much for them.
Every week, TV programs show elaborate and expensive ways to
spoil dogs - and this is where Three Dog Bakery comes in with its
extensive range of exclusive items ranging from $A404 blankets to
fluffy toys shaped like expensive shoes and embossed with the names
“Jimmy Chew” and “Vera Wag”.
“I have to laugh sometimes - they are ridiculous items for pets.
There is a certain whimsy about the whole thing, but we do it for
the love of animals,” said Earles.
Owners of the new Three Dogs Bakery are hoping to repeat in Hong
Kong the phenomenal success of their outlets in Japan.
The chain now has eight stores in Japan, having opened its first
eight years ago, and Japanese dog owners and their pets regularly
queue outside them.
Clement Lo, who runs Hong Kong’s Three Dog Bakery, expects to
have a similar impact here. He is opening a second store in the
territory at the same time and believes the city’s 200,000
registered “loved ones” will create enough of a market for
five.
He says he has already been approached by a city restaurant to
provide special dog dinners and one of casino billionaire Stanley
Ho’s relatives has visited the new store with an eye to setting up
a franchise in the nearby gambling centre of Macau.
Peter de Krassel, a director of the Pets Central chain in the
city, says the demand for pet-pampering has rocketed in recent
years.
“The number of dogs registered has doubled over the past five
years,” said de Krassel, who says he wants to list his company in
London in 2009.
“You have a lot of young professional couples who are choosing to
have pets instead of children and you have a lot of empty-nesters,”
he added.
He says the potential market in Hong Kong and mainland China is
huge, and he is looking to expand into Shenzhen, Beijing and
Shanghai - despite the fact that dog meat is still eaten many parts
of China.
De Krassel said some high-earning pet owners in China regularly
fly their pets to the United States for medical treatment.
And in Hong Kong, the growing number of pet owners appear to
constitute a powerful lobby group, with politicians taking on their
concerns.
Chairman of the city’s Democratic Party and dog owner Albert Ho
joined a recent protest to demand tougher action on animal
abuse.
But the rapid expansion of the market here has created some
tensions. De Krassel was recently forced to shut down his Pet
Parents’ Caf by health inspectors following a complaint that it
breached regulations by having dogs in the vicinity of food for
humans. He is appealing the closure.
Despite, and perhaps because of, the pet boom, Hong Kong does
suffer a large number of pet abuse cases.
Packs of wild dogs roam some of the more remote parts of the
territory, having been abandoned by their owners. Police handled 41
abuse cases between January and September last year, according to
the South China Morning Post.
But the most sinister anti-pet backlash remains the city’s
mysterious “Bowen Road poisoner” who has allegedly killed dozens of
pets in the past two decades.
The killer, who has never been caught, leaves pieces of meat
injected with poison at the side of a tree-lined street popular
with dog walkers.
Despite police appeals and offers of a reward, the killer
remains at large.
AFP
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