Dog-walking services surge in popularity among Chinese students

Chinese college students, even those without pets, are increasingly interested in offering dog-walking services, catering to pet owners who lack the time to do it themselves.

Students who love animals and have plenty of time, along with pet owners, praise this innovative practice. Now that summer vacation has begun, locales across the country have witnessed a great number of students-turned-dog walkers.

A man walks a dog for his client. (Chengdu Economic Daily/Zhang Zhaoting)

One student, Wu from the University of Melbourne, returned to her hometown of Suzhou in east China's Jiangsu Province for summer vacation. She has already walked dogs for various pet owners five times this summer.

"There are many videos of my peers becoming dog walkers on short-video platforms," she said. "I found it quite interesting, so I left a message about providing dog walking services in the WeChat group of my neighborhood and was contacted by a dog owner shortly after."

Before Wu is entrusted with a dog, both parties confirm their identities, and agree on the time, route and other details. While out with the dog, she records clips or shows the process in a livestream to the owner.

On Douyin, China's short video and e-commerce platform, videos with the hashtag "college students walk dogs" have garnered 2.04 billion views. Many users on Xiaohongshu, a lifestyle-sharing social media platform, and Weibo, another popular Chinese social media platform, have shared their dog-walking experiences. According to Xianyu, a second-hand trading platform under Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, Jiangsu and central China's Hubei Province rank among the regions with the highest number of such activities in the country. Chat groups have been set up on Chinese social media platforms to facilitate contact between dog owners and walkers.

Chen Youhua, a professor at the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Nanjing University in Jiangsu Province, believes that student interaction with pets can help reduce pressure, and foster a stronger sense of responsibility through caring for the animals.