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With the Year of the Dog close at hand on January 29, Beijing's pooches are being primped and pampered to celebrate the occasion.

Dog owners are going all out, splashing on clothes, gifts and haircuts for their precious pets.

Hao Didi, 22, who has four puppies, said that she and the family will be dressing up the pups in traditional Chinese costumes, the tangzhuang. Appointments have also been made at the pet beauty salon for the doggies.

"The Year of the Dog is something special for everyone in my family. We love and care for our dogs a lot. And this is their year," Hao said. 

There are 12 animals on the Chinese horoscope, each lunar calendar year being represented by each one in 12-year cycles. The animals are, in cyclical order, the rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog, and pig.

The owner of Coolbaby Pet Products Store in Beijing said that business has been brisk in the last two weeks. He said that he sold 30 percent more dog clothes and toys in the last week alone.

According to a shop assistant, traditional clothes and those in red were the best sellers, the tangzhuang selling for more than 70 yuan (US$8.70) each.

And in keeping with tradition, dogs, like their owners, will be getting a wash and a haircut before the New Year.

A shop assistant at Beijing Hiway Pet Center said that there's been a bit of a queue of dogs waiting their turn for grooming the last few days.

Grooming services cost between 35 (US$4.50) to 200 yuan (about US$25).

Some pet beauty salons even offer saunas for dogs.

Also high on the list of I-love-my-pet activities is putting photo albums together.

Qin's Photo Studio in Beijing, a pet photography service that caters mainly to magazines and shops, has received "quite a number of" individual customers in the past few days, an assistant surnamed Chen said.

Only over the last weekend, she noted, the studio had six appointments from individual customers, which is not usual.

An average album costs 550 yuan (approximately US$70), she said.

A loyal, obedient animal, the dog is believed to bring fortune. As the Chinese saying goes: "Cats come with poverty, dogs with property".

According to statistics from the Beijing Association of Small Animal Protection, Beijing has more than one million pet dogs, more than any other city in the country.

Statistics also show that Beijingers spend more than 500 million yuan (about US$65 million) every year on their pets.

On a less "yappy" note, there are also about 200,000 stray or abandoned dogs that roam the city's streets.

(Xinhua News Agency January 28, 2006)