Purrenting: More Kenyans acquire fur babies

Former Miss World Kenya Cecilia Mwangi with her dogs at home in Nairobi. [Courtesy]

"They now try to get the best food for their pets, and provide the best veterinary care for them and also provide the best environment for them, be it housing, getting rid of parasites and such routine things. We are still not at par with developed countries but eventually, we will get there."

We are getting there, as nowadays you can take your pet to a pet spa, some high-end such as at Very Impawtant Pets for some grooming and pampering.

There are pet daycares and boarding facilities so that your pet is well taken care of when you are away and if your furbaby is unwell, places like Poseidon Veterinary Clinic in Lang'ata have a 24-hour ambulance service available for them. Even in the final leg of their journey, you can give your pet a befitting sendoff, as places like Lee Funeral Home offer pet cremations, a service they started giving six months ago for smaller pets like cats and dogs because people would ask for it a lot.

"We collect the pet from the place where the pet has passed away, which is usually at the vet or their house, then we cremate them in a dedicated crematorium for pets only, and then the ashes are processed, put in a pet urn," Paul Van Brussel, the Managing Director of Lee Funeral Home told the Sunday Standard.

Once the ashes have been processed and put in an urn, they are delivered back to the owner's home. The collection and delivery is not just a nice service that they offer, it is a necessary one.

"Because we do not want people to come in here (to the funeral home) with their dead dog in a blanket and someone thinks the dog will be placed together with people. So we do not store any pets here. If a pet cannot be cremated immediately, because it is 5 o'clock or something then we do it the next day, and we store it in Hardy, Karen, in a dedicated refrigerator for that," he said.

Paul explains that most often, the reason people ask for the service is that they do not live permanently at the house, but are only renting it.

The most loved pets in Kenya are dogs. Cats are second, but a lot of the time they are tolerated as useful pets that get rid of other pests, rather than as a companion, especially in rural areas.

"You find a majority of cats as pets in urban areas, not rural areas. In rural areas, they do not bring them to the clinic per se, only a few, but we see a lot of cats in clinics in Nairobi, Mombasa, and Kisumu - in urban areas generally. It is because people there live in apartments there and it is easier for them to have a cat," says Dr Oundo.

Rabbits have been known as a boyish venture, something boys do as children but then later grow out of. Some previously rare pets are becoming a bit more commonplace, like birds such as parrots and peacocks. Other pets, however, such as snakes, rats, and so on are yet to catch on.