Xiangzi - Lucky, in English - is appropriately named. His owner Qiu Hong, a sports marketer,lets the dog enjoy two daily walks,a collection of imported American toys, $300 worth of monthly food and treats and his own sofa in her high-rise apartment. When Ms. Qiu feels bored, she takes Xiangzi out for a long run in her car. In a sense, Xiangzi is not just a dog, but a social phenomenon - and, perhaps, a marker of how quickly the Chinese nation is booming through its transformation from poor farmer to first-world citizen.Twenty years ago,there were hardly any dogs in Beijing, but now there're 900,000 registered dogs with countless thousands of others unlicensed. How this came to be is, in some ways, the story of modern China as well.  "People used to be focused on improving their own lives, and they weren't really acquainted with raising dogs," said Ms. Qiu. "But with the improvement in the economy, people's outlooks   have changed."  Having a dog can be a way to relieve the stress in people's lives, but mostly Beijing dogs have, as in the West, become objects of affection - even devotion - by their owners. It's easy to find dog-treat stores, dog Web sites, dog social networks, dog swimming pools - even, for a time recently, a bring-your-dog cinema and a bring-your-dog bar on Beijing's downtown nightclub row. The doglike devotion of pet owners here seems to have softened the city government heart. In 1994, Beijing officials relaxed their no-dog policy to "severely restrict" dogs. In 2003,it was changed again to allow anyone to own a dog, but to limit city dogs to no more than 35 centimeters in height. And nowadays the restriction seems to be loosely carried out.  As for sti-fried Pekingese  - well, that dog,too, may have seen its day. A formal suggestion to ban the eating of dogs has been made by a law professor named Chang Jiwen, who considered himself "not so much a dog lover as a China lover". "With China developing so quickly, more people should know how to treat animals properly," he said in 3 telephone interview. Judging from the article,we can know that  _  .
Pet owners can be as devoted as the dog there were no dogs in Beijing before 2003 Beijing strictly bans dogs above 35cm high in practice Chang Jiwen spoke for dog lovers only