A puppet cat with a silk scarf is lazyly lying on a retrograde couch, with a Koki dog in a little tuxedo sitting at the table with a mini teacup in front of him; a fancy dog in a dinosaur dress smiles in front of a white-faced background... In recent years, with the continued warming of its “economics”, there has been a wave of pictures of what is really about love. The journalists were informed that the pet writing shop had landed in a number of cities, that there were shops where the custom writing price was in excess of $10,000 and that the business was still hot.
"It's a thousand dollars to shoot the dog, and it's expensive, but I think it's worth it. These are warm memories I share with the dog." Mr. Liu lives in Chongqing and just last week took a photo of his own pet dog for his birthday, and Mr. Liu told reporters, "It's like my family, I want to record every lovely moment of his life in a photo."
There are more and more pet owners like Mr. Liu. According to the White Paper on the Chinese pet industry 2025, in 2024 the number of domestic pets stood at 12.41 million, an increase of 2.1 per cent over 2023. Of these, the number of pet dogs was 52.58 million, an increase of 1.6 per cent over 2023 and the number of pet cats was 71.53 million, an increase of 2.5 per cent over 2023. The size of the urban (dog and cat) consumer market grew by 7.5 per cent to $30.2 billion. The average annual consumption of a single pet dog is $2961, an increase of 3.0 per cent compared to 2023. The average annual consumption of a single pet cat is 2020 dollars, an increase of 4.9 per cent from 2023.
“Seven percent of our clients are young people after 90 and after 00, who treat their pets as children and partners and are willing to pay for their emotions.” A Beijing pet writing shop owner told journalists that the most expensive tailor-made packages, including exterior filming, professional drawings and fine albums, were still in short supply. The difficulty of pet photography requires confidence-building and rapid capture.
One of the pet photographers in Chinan told journalists that pet photography was not simply a fast-tracking exercise, and that the professional pet writing reality house was usually equipped with pet conduct guides, professional photographers and emergency medical equipment.
"It's much harder to film a pet than a human." Shenzhen, a photographer with four years of experience in pet filming, said, "Animals cannot follow orders, and we need to wait very patiently for the best of times. Sometimes a two-hour shot takes less than 20 minutes."
In order to attract the attention of the pets, the studio is regularly equipped with snacks, sound toys and professional guides. Photographers need to adopt different strategies for the character characteristics of different pets: patient confidence-building is required for timid pets, and quick capture is required for lively and good.
Currently, with increased market competition, single photographic services have become difficult to meet, and many writing houses have begun to expand their operational boundaries. “In addition to basic filming, we also offer pet beauty services, clothing rentals, photo surroundings, etc.” The Chengdu family of pets wrote about the owner of the real house, “Many of the guests, after taking photographs, make their pets a souvenir, such as beauty or custom keys”.
There are voices on social platforms that believe that filming for pets is an “overconsumption”. Animal protectors are also concerned that prolonged filming may cause stress in pets. "Not all animals like to be filmed, and the owner should respect the nature and state of the pet."
In response, industry indicated that regular pet writing places would severely restrict single filming times and provide breaks to ensure animal welfare. "We will advise the owner to familiarize the pet with the environment in advance, to observe the pet's state at any time during the filming, and to stop immediately if he is not comfortable." According to the director of a pet's realist.