Local media reports that dog owners will have to pay fines of $60 if found breaching the new rules. The banned dog breeds include Dobermans, Pitbulls, and Tibetan Bull Mastiffs.
“More and more residents have dogs, but that has caused incidents of dogs disturbing or even injuring people. It’s based on the approach taken by other cities,” a local security office told The Beijing News.
Shanghai was one of the first Chinese cities to implement similar controls, and ruled 600,000 dogs to be unlicensed and illegal after the policy was implemented. Jinan City went a step further by saying they would beat any dog found in homes to death. Changzhou decided to bin the one-dog restriction policy after anger from residents.
Dog ownership across China has boomed as the burgeoning middle class bought pets. It’s estimated that most pet owners are under 45, and 62 percent of all pets owned are dogs, followed by cats, at 19 percent.
The move has made dog-owners furious. On Sina-Weibo, a Chinese social media site: “In the past we implemented the one-child policy, now we have the one-dog policy, we do not know how many innocent lives will again be killed [if the policy is introduced],” said one user.
The new policy dictates that owners who have more than one dog must give one dog to a local adoption agency to adhere to the new regulations. The Chinese government rolled back the one-child policy in 2015, and now allows couples to have two children if they wish.
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