Businessman is determined to give our beloved animals the send-off they deserve

Li Chao has one lifelong regret: Not burying his "best friend" properly. He's been making up for it ever since.

Li remembers Jojo's death vividly. A long-haired husky, she'd lived with Li for seven years and witnessed some of his most intimate struggles, from bachelorhood to marriage. But one afternoon in October 2015, the dog had an epileptic fit and died before Li's eyes. He wept for several hours before realizing he needed to do something about Jojo's remains.

Unfortunately, the cremation services he contacted only added to his pain. "Their manner was cold and distant. Everything was simple and crude," Li says. "And the final price was higher than what we'd agreed on. I should have said goodbye to her in a much better way."

The heartbreaking experience motivated Li to make a life-changing decision: He would open his own pet funeral service, to provide the level of attention and sympathy that he and his beloved Jojo had been denied.

Against the will of his family, Li quit his well-paid job as a media manager and began researching the market. A month later, he founded JoyPets.

China's pet funeral industry is on the verge of an expected boom. Citing the National Bureau of Statistics of China, a 2016 Forbes report on the overall pet industry - currently valued at 130 billion yuan ($19.6 billion; 16.8 billion euros; ￡14.9 billion) and climbing - noted that China ranked third globally for dog ownership, with 27.4 million pet dogs, compared with 55.3 million in the United States and 35.7 million in Brazil. (It's no slouch when it comes to cats, either: Chinese reportedly own 58.1 million felines.) Beijing alone has 1.5 million registered dogs, according to the China Beijing Kennel Club, an organization managed by the local Public Security Bureau. The club estimates that at least 200,000 pets die in Beijing each year, a huge potential market for companies like JoyPets.

Like most startups, Joy-Pets had a hard time getting people's attention: Li Chao's customers either didn't know about his business, or didn't think it was necessary. But Li's first customer proved to be a special case - a 35-kilogram golden retriever, paralyzed and suffering from a tumor and severe bedsores, whose owner was about to have him put down. When Li saw the dying animal, he immediately understood the need: "There was nothing more in his life but suffering."

"Faced with the death of their beloved pets, what people need is listening, caring and professional advice," says Li. "They are very fragile emotionally; a tiny mistake can cause a breakdown. We must comfort them from our heart, instead of going through the procedures mechanically."

Since then, Li has accompanied many pet owners through euthanasia. Swift and painless as the process is, seeing the life drain from a pet never gets any easier. "It's torture," says Li. "Every time someone calls for advice, I ask very carefully about the situation, the reason why. ... Wherever possible, I'll suggest keeping watch, keeping (the pet) company, instead of turning to mercy killing immediately."

Daodao was one whose fate Li delayed. The husky was suffering from incurable and painful bone cancer, but struggled intensely when taken to be put down, barking mournfully. The plan was shelved; Daodao's owners spent another three days with their pet before the animal died peacefully at home.

To date, JoyPets has served more than 1,000 clients. For cremation services, the company charges between 400 and 600 yuan per animal - and also offers a taxidermy and "souvenir "alternatives, in which cremated remains are converted into objects such as jewelry.

Yet most dead pets - about nine out of 10 - are still not disposed of properly or legally. Shen Ruihong, secretary general of the China Beijing Kennel Club, told the Beijing Evening News that the majority of owners bury their own pets, either in their garden or in the woods or suburbs; a few simply leave them in trash bins, the body concealed in a plastic bag.

According to China's Law on Animal Epidemic Prevention and Technical Standards for Safety Disposal of Animals Dead from Illness, issued by the Department of Agriculture, animals that die of disease should be disposed of with safely regulated methods, such as burning, vaporizing or burying in designated locations.

Li says: "Improper burial may not only break the law, but it also affects neighbors. And the owners have to worry that the dead pets could be dug up." He once received a tearful phone call at midnight from a young woman who feared the cat she'd recently buried in the yard of her apartment complex was about to be excavated as part of a building redevelopment project.

The incident brought home the issue for Li. "Currently, the problem (of improper burial and corpse disposal) is still serious. It's partly because of the cost, but the main reason is lack of information. Even some pet store operators don't know the existence of the pet funeral industry. Many of our clients tell us they never knew before that a pet could be cremated."

Others have, perhaps, embraced the industry a little too enthusiastically. In 2015, a lavish funeral in Shanghai, replete with a wake, professional mourners and limousine-chauffeured luxury coffin, provoked a variety of outraged comments after State media outlets shared the pictures online. A search for "pet funeral" on Taobao, China's largest e-commerce platform, brings up dozens of results for postmortem services, with costs ranging from hundreds to thousands of yuan. In March, Beijing Youth Daily reported on the existence of several upscale pet cemeteries, where plots can cost up to 10,000 yuan.

Instead, JoyPets, alongside several other companies, provides ecological alternatives, such as turning remains into fertilizer that can be used to grow a houseplant, or even stuffing an animal.

Only a tiny percentage of clients choose to stuff their pets, Li says, but they usually do it for a personal reason. He recalls a client whose German shepherd had scared away an intruder who broke into the family home. "When the dog died of old age, they wanted to keep their heroic friend with them forever," says Li. "Different pets have different stories in different families. ... For some, a pet is a family member, and (taxidermy) makes them feel as if their pet never left."

Despite the place most pets hold in people's hearts, many of his friends disapprove of Li's career, saying the industry is fragile and vulnerable to misinterpretation and lack of acceptance. There are many problems in the industry, Li agrees, including a lack of clear procedures and the relatively poor quality of some facilities and services, particularly compared with those in Hong Kong, Taiwan and other developed areas. "But I know what I am doing and why I am doing it," says Li. "Helping others see their pets off gives me a sense of purpose, especially when I experienced all of it myself."

Courtesy of The World of Chinese; www.theworldofchinese.com.cn

The World of Chinese

(China Daily Africa Weekly 11/03/2017 page23)