The dog rental economy is here, and depending on how attached you are to your animal, it will either sound like a great idea or a complete affront to everything you stand for.
Wangfu, a pet-sharing platform that launched earlier this year, is operating in Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen with a straightforward pitch: dog owners list their animals, renters pick one and request a walk. Hourly fees range from 10 to 60 yuan ($1.50 to $9), depending on the dog. Both parties go through real-name verification, the platform carries pet insurance, and GPS tracking runs the whole time. According to the South China Morning Post, walks stay in areas the dog already knows, and renters are on the hook to call the owner the moment anything goes awry.
Some of the individual listings add a bit of absurdity to the whole enterprise. A West Highland Terrier named Even is available in Shenzhen for 45 yuan an hour, though renters can only walk him with his owner present and cannot feed him anything not pre-approved. A Corgi named Baiwan goes for 60 yuan and can apparently be taken out by car.
A New Dog-Rental App Lets People Borrow Pets by the Hour, and Vets Are Concerned
Vets aren’t buying the “most dogs enjoy socializing with strangers” line. Chen Shi, a Wuhan-based vet who spoke to the South China Morning Post, said putting dogs through repeated handler and environment changes causes emotional stress — and canine attachment research has the cortisol data to prove it. Dogs aren’t Airbnb properties. They notice who’s holding the leash.
My own dog obsession is probably borderline concerning, but handing him off to a stranger by the hour is not something I could get behind. The separation anxiety alone would be mine, not his.
Wangfu isn’t the first platform to try this. A Chengdu pet shop launched a cat-rental service in 2021 for 9.9 yuan a day and shut down after significant backlash from cat owners. The dog version is generating similar split reactions: some users see it as a gateway to eventual adoption, while others, including a Shenzhen user named Sherry who spoke to the SCMP, land somewhere closer to: “Charging people to rent out a pet that feels like a child to you is unacceptable.”
That’s probably where most dog owners end up on this one. At least I do.