Sit, stay, heal: The Philippine dog after the fur baby boom

“Look, there’s one over there,” Romy Sia says, marveling at the creature he’s spotted like it’s one of the Big Five in an African savannah.

\tThis is no safari, however. We’re at a mall in Makati — in the kind of space that’s flourished in the past decade. Bow & Wow’s Greenbelt branch is one of the largest pet stores in the Philippines. From behind a curtain of premium dog leashes, Sia and I observe the fauna that’s come into focus: a golden retriever bouncing toward a colossal shelf of fetching toys.
\t“It’s so happy. You see, dogs know. When they come here, they go straight for the product they want,” says Sia, Bow & Wow’s CEO. The retriever effortlessly tugs a neon knot of rope off its hook, as familiar with the retail display as it is coaxing its human parents toward the cash register.

Lately, the frenzy over anything with four paws has been hard to ignore. According to the Philippine Statistics Authority, from over 12,000 businesses classified under the Philippine pet industry in 2016, the Department of Trade & Industry would see an 18% growth in registrations by 2020. The next year, a Rakuten survey proclaimed Philippine dog ownership the highest in Asia.

Across the nation, you’ll find dog grooming centers and pet hotels sprouting as aggressively as milk tea kiosks. Leisurely days out no longer mean confining our dogs to those places either, not when a slew of pet parks in Taguig, or pet resorts in Pasig, offer recreational thrills. Meanwhile, the center of Pinoy public life — the mall — has pivoted from teeth-gritting tolerance to a tail-wagging sense of welcome, offering pet strollers for rent or priest-officiated pet blessings for free. From coffeeshops like The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf to supermarkets like Landmark permitting entry to our pooches (not to mention GrabCar’s pet-friendly option to shuttle them between locations), there’s no doubt that Metro Manila’s commercial realm has become increasingly accommodating to its collared clientele.

“Ang daming competition talaga,” says Cebu-based pet food distributor Jaclyn Buendia, who noticed an onrush of pet store openings in her city since the pandemic. In 2018, she too opened a pet store, House of Fur, launching another branch the following year as her business captured a regional market. They now distribute products to pet stores in Visayas and Mindanao.

Whether dogs became a quick source of comfort (plus easy Instagram likes) during quarantine or that Filipinos are increasingly content to rear puppies than raise children, what’s clear is that the Philippine fur baby boom came with pet parents eager to spend. The Great Pause prompted a prolonged scroll through social media storefronts and e-commerce platforms, hawking everything from paw moisturizer to design-forward dog crates (“barkitecture”) that looked right at home in a West Elm catalog.

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