Hong Kong's curious love-hate relationship with pets is undiminished. We have become as attached to them as people in the western world with a long history of pampering their pets. Yet while they share our cramped high-rise homes, we are unable to find much of a life for them outside in the urban jungle. It is not easy to find a spot where a dog or cat can flex its paws and they are banned from most parks.
Pet ownership, therefore, is a labour of love and attention to their needs. The reward is the companionship that pets bring to busy, stressful and sometimes lonely lives.
People who do not care for pets may be baffled by the commitment that can never return a material benefit. Those who do would probably empathise with American humourist Mark Twain's thoughts on people, dogs and the life hereafter: 'If I have any views on immortality, it is that certain dogs I have known will go to heaven, and very, very few persons.'
Indeed, for many, attachment to our pets does not end the moment they die. For an increasing number of people, it may be important to lay their late companions to rest with dignity and respect. They want something a little less impersonal than the dead-pet-in-a-box drop-off service at a government rubbish collection centre.
But they are unlikely to have in mind the alternative described in our report today about the cremation process carried out on the top floor of a factory building in a residential neighbourhood at Tai Kok Tsui. It is one of the private services pet lovers have had to turn to since the government closed the only public pet incinerator at Kennedy Town Abattoir in 1999.
There is nothing wrong with leaving the pet-funeral business to the private sector, so long as it is licensed by the government according to appropriate standards of location and operation. As our report says, however, finding a government department that will own up to responsibility can be difficult. It seems that at present an incinerator does not need a licence unless it cremates the unlikely volume of half a tonne of pets per hour.