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Dogs must be on a leash in outdoor areas in Shaoxing, Zhejiang province starting from May 1. [Photo/IC]

Shaoxing in East China's Zhejiang province is helping the city's dog owners get used to China's revised Law on Animal Epidemic Prevention, which took effect on May 1.

Dogs should wear a dog tag, be inoculated against rabies, and be registered with local authorities, according to the law.

The urban administration bureau has set up many one-stop service stations across the city to offer dog tags and to implant microchips. An'an Pet Hospital in Yuecheng district is one of them.

"The GPS-embedded chip has a unique code number, which can be identified with a special device. The smart tags can enable police to identify the dog from a certain distance," said Pan Xiaoyong, a staff member of the pet hospital.

Each pet dog will also wear a bone-shaped tag with a QR code on it. The chip and tag will mainly be used for the management of stray dogs, according to the urban administration bureau.

"In April, we registered over 70 pet dogs. The number was almost double than usual thanks to the new law," said Pan.

As of 2019, the number of dog owners in China's urban areas topped 36 million, according to a white paper on China's pet business published by a Chinese pet industry website.

According to local media outlets, Shaoxing is one of the first cities in China to manage pet and stray dogs in a humane way.

An online pet dog management platform was launched in 2020 and has registered over 16,000 dogs to date. The city has 43 one-stop service stations where owners can have their dogs tagged and vaccinated.