China's northeastern city Harbin recently spotted its first "pet match-making center," with six "single" pets registered to look for the "other half" through the center.

According to the center's official Mr. Tian, he was inspired by overseas experience to launch this "pet match making service." Considering that Harbin's pet market is large and the absence of this type of special organizations, quite a few pet owners want to find "mates" for their beloved dogs and cats but have a hard time doing so. Mr. Tian established this "pet match making service" to help pets tie their knots.

It was understood that if owners want to find "mates" for their pets, they must first register at his center and put down the pedigree, name, gender, fur color, weight and likes and dislikes of their pets and must also specify in advance the standards of the "mate" they seek. If a suitable match comes up, the center will notify both sides to have a get together. After the pets mate and the female becomes pregnant, the owner of the male pet must give a certain gratuity to the owner of the female pet, with the amount of the gratuity to be freely negotiated between the two parties. The center charges 60 yuan from each party as its service fees.

It was learned that in the first ten days since the "pet matchmaking center" was established, there have been numerous phone inquiries and six customers show up to request that their pets find suitable "mates." Most of these are dogs of high pedigree that request their potential mates be of the same caliber.

(Chinanews.cn October 12, 2005)