Cats and dogs can now fill the hours their owners are at work with a dedicated all-day streaming channel for pets launched by Chinese tech giant Tencent.

Clips of a duckling swimming in a bath or two happy pooches patrolling their neighbourhood are examples of the curated programming on “PetTV”.

The new channel on Tencent Video — China’s most popular online streaming platform — is meant to keep pets company while alone or can act as an activity for animals and humans to enjoy together.

“This is all dog content, when will the cat programme be on?” one person engrossed in the service wrote in the chatroom on PetTV’s streaming page.

Tencent Video described PetTV as a “24-hour happiness hub specially designed for your furry kids” in a post on social media app WeChat introducing the service last weekend.

Dogs and cats’ senses are different to humans’, so the channel’s colours, refresh rates and audio frequencies have been designed to suit their specific needs, it said.

PetTV is available to paid subscribers of Tencent Video, which said its market research found that 66 per cent of dog owners leave the television on for their pets when they are out.

But the streaming service isn’t the only pet-specific media on the market.

Popular Headspace mindfulness app posted a YouTube video this week titled: “When your pets miss you, play this: 6 hour calming music for dogs and cats”.

Tencent Video will also take advantage of third-party content including airing America’s DogTV — the world’s first TV channel and streaming service for pets.

The value of China’s growing urban pet market is estimated to reach 405 billion yuan ($59 billion) in 2028, according to a recent report by PetData.cn.

On average last year, Chinese households spent more than 3,000 yuan (US$435) on each dog and more than 2,000 yuan on each cat for their care needs.

A fashionable bat, a melancholy sun, and a springtime spirit with seasonal allergies are just a few of the characters conceived by Cat Johnston. Drawing on childhood memories, folk art, and nature, the London-based illustrator and model maker creates expressive sculptures and puppets that inhabit dreamlike realms.

Invoking historical costumes and cartoonish and emotive faces, Johnston’s otherworldly cast seems both familiar and strange, as if children’s book protagonists have sprung to life or converged with a strange dream. Recent characters comprise a series of gods representing sunburn, hay fever, and insomnia, which also—rather inconveniently—are the sun, flowers, and the moon.

Johnston recently made her first short film in collaboration with stop-motion animator and fellow puppet-maker Joseph Wallace called “The Wickywock and the Jubjub Berry.” As a mythical woodland creature deals with a bout of sleeplessness, a forest sprite appears with what seems like a practical solution, but things don’t exactly go as planned.

Coinciding with a local pagan festival called the Hastings Traditional Jack in the Green, which occurs every first weekend of May, Johnston will have a small solo exhibition at a local pub called The Crown. In addition to signing on to work with London-based cinematic studio Passion Pictures as a director, the artist continues to explore the possibilities of film.

Johnston is currently working on a few ideas for animated series and hoping to develop a slightly longer format stop-motion project while also working on another short film, “which will be a mix of live action puppetry and stop-motion animation and will feature two flowery monsters and an extremely cute bee,” she says.

You might also enjoy the quirky Hieronymus Bosch-inspired figures of Roberto Benavidez.

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article Folklore and Nature Converge in Cat Johnston’s Expressive, Eccentric Puppets appeared first on Colossal.