Meanwhile, spending on pet food and pet care in China is expected to climb 15 percent this year, and the old belief that pets are a bourgeois indulgence held during the rule of Mao Zedong no longer has currency in the booming economy of the world's most populous country, Reuters reports.

That's the good news. The bad news is that, among the affluent in China dogs are increasingly becoming fashion items, outfitted in designer clothing, or, as shown in the AP photo above, being dyed unnatural colors.

"In Beijing, there's a huge market with pitiful dogs waiting in cages to be sold as meat, and literally a few yards away standard poodles dyed in all colors of the rainbow," Jill Robinson, CEO of Animals Asia Foundation, a Hong-Kong based animal welfare charity, told Reuters.

There were nearly 11 billion pets in China in 2007, according to Euromonitor International, up from 10.8 billion in 2006, but the bulk of those are birds, fish and reptiles. China estimates it has 150 million pet dogs.

But experts say the industry's potential in China is enormous as incomes rise and more of the country's  "DINK" couples - double income, no kids - see pets as less needy child-substitutes while they balance careers with family life.

To see the full Reuters report, click here.