China's one dog policy

AP/NY Times:

First it was one child. Now authorities say Beijing families will be allowed only one dog.

The restriction is part of efforts to stamp out rabies, state media said Wednesday. It follows a campaign in August in which thousands of dogs were killed in order to fight the disease.

China's capital will institute a ''one dog'' policy for each household in nine areas, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

''Only one pet dog is allowed per household in the zones, and dangerous and large dogs will be banned. Anyone keeping an unlicensed dog will face prosecution,'' Xinhua said.

It said rabies killed 318 people nationwide in September.

Rabies is on the rise in China, with 2,651 reported deaths from the disease in 2004, the last year for which data were available.

Only 3 percent of China's dogs are vaccinated against rabies, which attacks the nervous system and can be fatal.

China has limited most urban couples to one child and those in the countryside to two since the 1970s in an effort to limit population growth and ease the strain on resources.

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Requiring rabies shots for pets seems like a more effective way of dealing with rabies. With a population of about a billion, there will still be several hundred million unvaccinated dogs under the new plan. Meanwhile the mass slaughter of dogs continues. The North Koreans must be wretched at the thought of losing all that meat.