In the last several years, a growing number of spaces in Hong Kong have opened up to pets, from shopping malls like Airside to the MTR Light Rail. The number of pet gardens under the Leisure and Cultural Services Department increased from 10 in 2009 to 55 today. In 2019, the LCSD began to designate certain ordinary parks as “pet-inclusive”, expanding from an initial six locations to 180 as of March 2025.
Based on recent estimates by the market research firms and the Census and Statistics Department, Hong Kongers own somewhere between 221,000 and 312,000 dogs. There is little historical data for comparison, but one estimate from 1981 put the number of dogs at around 65,000, which would mean that Hong Kong now has 2-3 times more dogs adjusted for population growth. What is certain is that there are more dogs than children under the age of five, of which there were 183,100 at the end of 2024. With many pet owners willing to spend considerable amounts of money, it is unsurprising that the market has responded. Yet in many ways, Hong Kong is still far from dog-friendly. More than 85% of the LCSD’s 1,684 parks do not allow dogs, nor do many private residential buildings, all public housing estates, and most forms of public transportation.
Pet lounge in a shopping mall. An increasing number of commercial properties have sought to attract pet owners in recent years. Photo credit: Joshua Wolper, 2025.
This broad antipathy towards dogs is usually assumed to be a natural result of Hong Kong’s crowded living environment, but it has surprisingly dark historical origins. In 1972, the Keep Hong Kong Campaign kicked off, introducing the classic Lap Sap Chung mascot. However, according to Prof. Catherine Chan who studies the history of animal welfare at Lingnan University, under the public hygiene campaign, the government rounded up and euthanized thousands of dogs annually, including not only strays but many pets as well.
Dogs were against the rules in resettlement estates, but had been widely tolerated up to this point. Residents were given a deadline to surrender them. The Urban Services Department also imposed HK$2,000 fines—then equivalent to 3 months of a clerk’s salary—for letting dogs defecate in public. This scared many owners into giving up even expensive pedigree dogs. News stories portrayed dogs as nuisances and “savage beasts”. As Hong Kong pursued dreams of cleanliness and modernity, tolerance for dogs and their disorderliness declined.
Left: Publicity poster from the Keep Hong Kong Clean Campaign portraying Lap Sap Chung. Source: Government Records Service, 1975. Right: Present-day dog toilet. The government began installing dog toilets like this in the late 1960s. Photo credit: City Unseen, 2025.
Dogs were not immediately banned from public parks. In fact, in the 1970s, dog toilets were built in many small parks as a preferable alternative to taking up space on the pavement. There were also a handful of “dog’s gardens” for dogs to play in, including ones in Victoria Park and Kowloon Park.
However, a rabies outbreak which claimed the lives of 8 people in the 1980s further hardened the government’s stance. Dog’s gardens disappeared from Urban Council documents after 1984, and by the late 1980s, the USD routinely reacted to complaints about dog faeces by erecting “no dogs allowed” signs. By 1991, dogs were banned from all Urban Council recreational facilities, a policy which continued when the LCSD took over its role in 2000. One of the rare parks that remained dog-friendly was Penfold Park, which is managed by the Hong Kong Jockey Club.
The trend started to reverse in the mid-to-late 2000s. Besides the construction of specialised pet gardens, the opening of non-LCSD parks like the Cyberport Waterfront Park and the West Kowloon Art Park demonstrated that dogs could successfully coexist with other park-goers.
Tay, who lives in Wan Chai and owns two corgis, noted recent changes in his district. The waterfront became dog-inclusive, and malls like Hopewell Centre have opened up to pets. In the past, his only option was to walk uphill to the Bowen Road Fitness Trail.
Still, dog access is patchy. While most of Hong Kong Island’s waterfront is pet-inclusive, that is not the case in Kowloon. Tsim Sha Tsui’s Avenue of the Stars allows dogs, but only on the part managed by New World Development. Olympic’s short promenade is split among three residential developments and the LCSD. The privately-managed segments allow dogs, but the LCSD’s does not.
Dogs are not permitted on the LCSD-managed section of the waterfront promenade at Olympic (left), but are allowed on the privately-managed sections (right). Photo credit: City Unseen, 2025.
Janice, who has an elderly mongrel named Cookie and a toy poodle named Twiggy, says they are not allowed to walk through Quarry Bay Park to get to the pet garden on the waterfront, so she has to be dropped off by taxi at a specific location. Before the waterfront became pet-inclusive, Tamar Park’s pet garden was similarly only accessible by one pet access route from Lung Wo Road.
Pet garden at Tamar Park (left), which used to only be accessible by one “pet access route” marked by coloured tape at the edge of the path (right). Photo credit: City Unseen, 2025.
“Pet access routes”, marked on the ground with vinyl tape, were a compromise devised by the LCSD to provide access to dog owners while fending off complaints from other park users. Though attitudes are changing, many people still dislike and fear dogs, due perhaps to unfamiliarity or past negative experiences.
What looks like a seamless space to ordinary pedestrians is criss-crossed by invisible boundaries defined by property lines and varying regulations. North Point resident Mandy and owner of Lai Yau (奶油), an energetic two year-old mongrel, knows exactly which patches of grass her dog is allowed on at the waterfront promenade. “They don’t care if she rolls around on the small ones, but a security guard comes and yells at us if she goes on the big lawn,” she explains.
Some pet gardens are tucked away in odd corners that would otherwise be undesirable to park users. Though Mandy seems extensively familiar with the LCSD’s website, it was actually Lai Yau’s nose that discovered a pet garden which is completely invisible from the street behind the ICAC building.
Lai Yau at the North Point Waterfront Promenade. Photo credit: Joshua Wolper, 2025.
Lai Yau runs around Man Hong Street Playground, a small pet garden hidden behind the ICAC building. Photo credit: Joshua Wolper, 2025.
In many neighbourhoods, there is some sort of unofficial dog hang-out spot. It might be a shady footpath, a quiet street, or even a space under a bridge. These in-between spaces might not look remarkable, but at certain times of the day, you will find a dog party in progress. These spaces can be categorized into several major types.
Besides Penfold Park, there are several smaller privately managed dog-friendly public spaces, such as Shan Kwong Road Park in Happy Valley, which is owned by the Jockey Club, or Bermuda Park in Tung Chung, which is managed by the Mass Transit Railway Corporation. Developers tasked with managing public open spaces under lease requirements can set their own rules, and some have opted to cater to dog owners.
Janice and her friends often walk down Lee Tung Street in Wan Chai because there is no traffic and several of the shops welcome dogs inside. Formerly known as Wedding Card Street, Lee Tung Street was controversially redeveloped by the Urban Renewal Authority between 2009 and 2015. The street and the podium garden are now privately managed public open spaces required under lease. Many pet owners live in the residential complex, and Lee Tung Street has become so popular with dog walkers that the management regularly pressure washes the pavement.
Janice, her husband Chris (left) and friends Tay (centre right) and Jason (far right) walk their five rescue dogs down Lee Tung Street. Photo credit: Joshua Wolper, 2025.
Janice’s dog Cookie and Jason’s dog Wiggy in a shop that sells yogurt cups for dogs on Lee Tung Street.
In certain parts of the city there are pedestrian rights-of-way created by property boundaries or old infrastructure. Fire Dragon Path in Tai Hang was created by the decking of an open nullah in 2012. Another example is an unnamed footpath running along the back fence of the Boundary Street Police Sports and Recreation Club at the bottom of Woh Chai Shan. These leftover linear spaces are sometimes outfitted with basic facilities like benches and rain shelters that are maintained by the Home Affairs Department, not the LCSD. You can tell which ones are popular with dog walkers by the presence of dog waste bins.
Dog owners gather on a pedestrian path at the bottom of Woh Chai Shan. Photo credit: City Unseen, 2025.
Dog waste bin provided by the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department on Fire Dragon Path. Photo credit: City Unseen, 2025.
Because so much of urban Hong Kong backs up onto steep hills, many residents have access to backyard trails, which traverse the greenbelts that buffer country parks from the city. Part of neither urban nor country parks, these trails act as informal green spaces for morning walkers, joggers, and dog walkers.
Sometimes, Mandy will walk from her North Point home all the way up Pak Fuk Road to Braemar Hill. Despite the occasional encounter with wild boars and snakes, these trails appeal to her because they are one of the few places where Lai Yau can run off-leash and eat grass to her heart’s content.
Left: A woman walks a dog at the top of Woh Chai Shan (Bishop Hill). Right: Hiking path on Braemar Hill. Photo credits: Carine Lai, 2022.
Big lawns where dogs can run off-leash are rare and highly sought after, so if there is a vacant yet reasonably maintained patch of grass anywhere, dog owners will find it. The Tuen-Chek Tunnel linking Tuen Mun with Chek Lap Kok Airport opened in late 2020. At the end of the long reclaimed jetty where the tunnel emerges west of Tuen Mun, there is a large, somewhat scrubby field ringed with palm trees. It is not officially a park, but during the Covid-19 pandemic, the spot went viral among KOLs as “Hong Kong’s Miami” and became a favourite weekend spot for dog owners.
The grass field at the end of the Tuen-Chek Tunnel jetty. Photo credit: City Unseen, 2025.
Janice prefers less structured spaces to designated pet gardens, which she thinks are too small and poorly designed. They lack shade and often lack sufficient seating. She also dislikes the fake grass surfaces that are commonly used. Dog owners care about details such as whether there are separate areas for large and small dogs (a safety concern), or whether the doors swing inwards or outwards (to prevent escapes).
Pet garden on the North Point Promenade. Mandy appreciates the handwashing basin and drinking fountains but not the lack of shade. Photo credit: Joshua Wolper, 2025.
Yet many of the gripes shared by Janice and Mandy were not about facilities, but about other people. Both women complained about irresponsible dog owners. “I once saw someone squirt water on their dog’s urine puddle inside a shopping mall!” said Mandy. Then there are members of the public who do not know how to interact appropriately with dogs. “I’ve had people feed my dogs bits of char siu without my permission,” says Janice.
In Hong Kong, where different groups of people compete for limited space, conflicts like this make it trickier for dogs to be integrated into public life. After decades of pushing them to the margins of public spaces, there is bound to be a learning curve as people figure out how to coexist with them. And as the humans work it out, perhaps more spaces will welcome the four-legged among us.
Catherine Chan, “Blacky, Tramp, and Bobby:The Forgotten Dog Purge in Hong Kong’s Progressive Seventies”, Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series, 12 March 2024, Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Hong Kong.
Census and Statistics Department, “Keeping of Dogs and Cats”, Thematic Household Sruvey Report – Report No. 66, 21 June 2019, HKSAR Government.
Euromonitor International (2023), quoted in “Sector Trend Analysis – Pet food trends in Hong Kong”, Market Intelligence Report, Government of Canada.
Transport and Housing Bureau, “Item for Public Words Subcommittee of Finance Committee”, PWSC(2009-10)52, 10 June 2009, HKSAR Government.
Leisure and Cultural Services Department, Annual Reports 2011-12 to 2022-23, HKSAR Government.
SPCA, “Pet Access to Public Open Spaces”, submission to Wan Chai District Council Working Group on the Provision of and Demand For Open Space Facilities in Wan Chai, 10 July 2017.
Urban Council, “Dog toilets”, UC.ENH.14.81, Urban Council Environmental Hygiene Select Committee, 28 April 1981, Hong Kong Government.
Urban Council, “Control of stray dogs”, UC.ENH.115.76, Urban Council Environmental Hygiene Select Committee, 3 May 1977, Hong Kong Government.
Urban Council, “Monthly Publicity Report”, UC.CW.129.76, Standing Committee of The Whole Council, 5 November 1976, Hong Kong Government.
Urban Council, “Monthly report on DB matters – June 1988”, UC.ENH.45.88, 1 August 1988, Hong Kong Government.
Urban Council, “Minutes of the meeting of Recreation Select Committee of Urban Council”, Recreation Select Committee, UC.REC120691, 12 June 1991, Hong Kong Government.
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