In China, demand growing for luxury pet hotels, dog spas, and pet massages as discerning middle class spoil furry friends

Cole Tu, 28, and his wife were overseas on a business trip, away from Sherry, Lion, Badboy, and Cutie when it started. Their four beloved dogs were in a kennel in Shanghai, but Tu was shocked to find, during a call to check in on them, that the kennel employees couldn’t even remember which pups were theirs. 

Upon returning to pick them up, they found one of their pets had a wound on his back. 

“I thought, OK, we need to have our own kennel,” Tu says. He sought advice from affluent friends to see what they would want from a pet service. 

Five years on, and he’s launching the fifth BlueBone spa – where, in contrast to a typical pet hotel, he offers “five-star meals” for dogs in his own private villa in Shanghai. Tu trains his employees to give dog massages in addition to grooming services, and he throws extravagant birthday parties. 

For a small additional fee, he chauffeurs pets to their treatments in his own Maserati sedan.

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This may sound a bit extreme to the average pet owner, who would no doubt be satisfied with a kennel that follows a basic set of regulations and standards, but the BlueBone chain, and businesses like it, cater to China’s growing ranks of middle-class owners who can afford to spoil their pets.