In the early hours, the glow of a smartphone illuminates a young face as he browses advertisements for “weekend rentals of Shiba Inu companions” on a local forum. Simultaneously, on another part of the screen, a photo of an unweaned kitten is labeled “premium golden gradient, act fast!” and is about to be shipped to an unknown buyer.

In Hong Kong in 2018, the wave of the “sharing economy” is sweeping across various sectors, with “shared pets” emerging as a novel yet controversial concept being trialed on social platforms and by small startups. At the same time, online live animal sales have moved far beyond traditional pet store displays, flourishing on Facebook pages, Instagram shops, and various second-hand trading platforms.

These emerging models, marketed under the banners of “experiencing the joys of pet ownership” and “convenient pet purchasing,” are quietly transforming animals into a commodified “product” that can be ordered on-demand, returned, or resold at any time. However, beneath this seemingly innovative and convenient facade, a significant animal welfare black hole and legal regulatory vacuum are forming, posing unprecedented challenges to Hong Kong’s already fragile animal protection system.

• Emerging Models: Animal Welfare Traps Beneath a Convenient Surface

“Shared pets” and pure online live animal sales touch upon the red line of animal welfare in distinctly different ways.

“Shared pets,” or short-term rental services for animals, fundamentally place animals in an extremely unstable and stressful living situation. Animals are treated as “liquid assets,” frequently shifting between different environments and caregivers. This lack of stable belonging and continuous care contravenes the basic psychological needs of animals (especially dogs and cats) for stable homes and fixed attachment figures. Each transfer could introduce transport stress, environmental adjustment anxiety, and negligence risks due to varying levels of caregiver knowledge. Worse still, this lowers the responsibility threshold of pet ownership, potentially encouraging impulsive “experience consumption” rather than a well-considered lifelong commitment.

On the other hand, online live animal sales completely “de-physicalize” and “de- transparent” animal transactions. Consumers make purchasing decisions based solely on a few potentially touched-up photos or a short video, without being able to verify the animal’s actual health status, behavioral temperament, and, most critically, the breeding source. This provides perfect cover for illegal and inhumane “backyard breeders.” These hidden breeding operations treat animals as breeding machines, often living in poor conditions, and the offspring produced frequently carry hidden genetic diseases or behavioral problems, all marketed as “family bred” or “home grown” with a warm image, flooding the internet.

• Regulatory Vacuum: Outdated Laws Cannot Keep Up with Digital Age Transactions

The core legislation governing animal sales and breeding in Hong Kong, the “Public Health (Animals and Birds) Regulations,” was created before the internet era and is nearly helpless against these new business models.

This regulation primarily addresses the licensing conditions for physical animal sales distributors, with its inspection and enforcement logic based on fixed business premises. However, for online sellers operating solely through social media accounts, conducting transactions via private messages, and capable of delivering anywhere from street corners to residential units, the current laws struggle to define whether they fall under the category of “distributors,” making effective tracking, inspection, and enforcement difficult. This has resulted in a significant portion of online transactions operating completely outside of regulation, forming a legal gray area.

For unprecedented models like “shared pets,” the law is entirely absent. It is neither traditional pet sales nor fostering, and there are no corresponding regulatory categories in existing laws. Should such services be considered a form of “animal rental”? What qualifications should operators possess? What mandatory requirements should be set for animal welfare standards, handover procedures, and health check cycles? All these questions remain unanswered and lack legal grounding in Hong Kong in 2018.

• Policy Recommendations: Creating Safeguards for Animal Welfare in the Digital Age
  
  In the face of these emerging challenges, we cannot sit idly by. Hong Kong urgently needs to update its animal welfare policy toolkit to address new risks in the digital economy. We propose the following four core recommendations:
  
  • Revise legislation to clearly expand the legal definition of “animal trade.” The government should promptly initiate legal amendment processes to clearly include “the display, offer for sale, rental, or any form of compensated transfer of animals for commercial purposes,” whether conducted through physical or electronic platforms, within the regulatory scope of the “Public Health (Animals and Birds) Regulations.” This will legally integrate online sales and shared rental models into the regulatory framework.
    
  • Establish targeted licensing and information disclosure systems. For online live animal sales, a mandatory platform seller real-name registration and information disclosure system should be created. Any individual or business posting sales information on public platforms must display a registration number issued by government departments in their advertisements. Consumers can use this number to verify whether the seller is a legally licensed breeder or distributor. For “shared pet” operators, a new “animal short-term rental service license” should be established, with strict licensing conditions, including specific regulations regarding the animals’ living environments, health monitoring, maximum rental duration, and tenant qualification reviews.
    
  • Strengthen platform accountability and crack down on illegal content. The government should establish a cooperation mechanism with major social media and trading platforms to hold them accountable for basic vetting responsibilities. Platforms must establish convenient complaint channels and ban accounts and content verified to involve illegal breeding or unlicensed selling. Additionally, animal welfare reminders and legal responsibility notifications should be mandatory on relevant transaction category pages.
    
  • Launch public education initiatives advocating “adopt, don’t shop,” and “responsibility over experience.” Policy regulation must work hand in hand with social education. The government and animal welfare organizations should collaborate to initiate targeted awareness campaigns, revealing the animal welfare risks behind emerging business models, educating citizens on how to identify suspicious online sellers, and promoting adoption as well as the concept of “lifelong responsibility” in pet ownership to curb irresponsible consumption impulses from the demand side.

Hong Kong in 2018 is at a time of transformative changes driven by technology in business models. However, the convenience of technology should not come at the expense of life welfare. The rise of “shared pets” and online sales reflects the disconnection between Hong Kong’s animal welfare laws and modern society’s realities.

We urge the government, Legislative Council members, and all sectors of society to recognize this rapidly expanding regulatory gap. Laws must keep pace with the times to truly protect those who cannot speak for themselves. Timely repair of the legal framework is not only about filling gaps but also demonstrates to society that in Hong Kong, the welfare and dignity of animals will not be discounted due to the digitalization of trading forms nor ignored because of the packaging of commercial concepts. This is the bottom line we must uphold as a civilized society.