Panda or Puppy ? Tiger or Retriever ?

The latest trend in China is to dye pets to make them look like other animals.
Like you can see on the picture, a golden retriever has been dyed to look like a tiger and chow chow pups have been dyed to look like pandas.

Dyeing pets has been around for a while now, at the major Pets Show Taipei there were plenty of dogs that had been dyed in to all kinds of different colours. But Dyeing pets to make them look like different animals is a whole new concept.

This is also shows that Asian countries have changed a lot, involving dogs and other animals.
10 years ago dogs were still served as a meal in restaurants and they were raised on farms for that purpose. Traditional Chinese medicine so called 'fragrant meat' that could fortify someone's life was also based on dog meat.
But nowadays, eating dogs is nearly an embarrassement. It reminds people of when they were poor.
If you want to show great wealth then get a dog, dye it to look like a tiger, and compete in dog shows.

It's a cool and nice concept, as long as it stays 'animal friendly'. So I hope for the dogs sake that it doesn't have any weird side effects !