Indians are going gooey over dogs

When Kyle D’Costa and his wife met Rio, a nine-month old shih apso, in 2021, “it was love at first sight.” The newly-weds soon added a shih tzu and, besotted with their pooches, also pet insurance, doggy-sized India cricket jerseys and other accoutrements. Then they rented a bigger flat to give the animals “more space”.

The D’Costas and millions of other middle-class Indians, chief beneficiaries of the country’s strong recent growth, are following a well-trodden development path. No longer content with new cars, branded sneakers and other Western baubles, they are rapidly acquiring pets. According to Statista, a data company, India had 19.4m pet dogs in 2018 and may now have 31m. In 2021 Market Decipher, another research outfit, estimated India’s pet economy to be worth $890m and that it would almost triple in size over the next decade.

The trend mirrors even more dramatic growth in China’s pet industry, which is estimated to have increased fivefold in seven years, to $58.6bn in 2022. Increased pet-ownership comes with rising incomes, especially among young professionals who tend to delay marriage and parenthood and to be especially open to a poochie surrogate. It is only a matter of time before Indian matrimonial websites include a “pet-friendly” option. In India as elsewhere, the covid-19 lockdown also increased demand for animal companionship.

Established pet-industry players are gearing up and new ones emerging. Nestlé, the world’s biggest food company, last year acquired Purina Petcare, an Indian pet-food business. Emami, an Indian consumer-goods giant, offers Ayurvedic medicines for pets. Euromonitor International, a market-research company, thinks India’s pet-food industry is worth $480m and will grow to $1.2bn by 2025.

Pet services, conventional and somewhat outlandish, are also booming. Grooming and boarding companies are becoming commonplace. Wiggles, one such firm, recently opened a vast facility in Pune, in Maharashtra. Supertails, an online pet store, offers pet-relationship managers and advises on pet-friendly policies. “We offer paw-ternity leave”, deadpans Varun Sadana, its co-founder, “for new parents [he means owners].” Take A Dog’s Story, a pet-friendly hotel chain, encourages customers “to pick a paw-perty at some of the most scenic locations across India.’‘ Visiting pets are garlanded with marigolds. “For me, the pet is a guest, not you,” says its founder, Himmat Anand.

As the prestige of pet-ownership rises, so does that of those working in the industry. “Being in this trade was looked down upon just five years ago,” says Chinmay, a 30-year-old dog trainer in Thane, a suburb of Mumbai. “How will you find a girl?” he recalls his relatives asking him. But dog trainers in Mumbai can these days charge 2,400 rupees ($30) an hour—more than twice as much as piano teachers. Chinmay, in hot demand, is now happily married to one of his clients. ■

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