South Koreans turn to tarot to learn what their dogs are thinking

At a fortune-telling shop in Seoul's upmarket Gangnam district, a fluffy dog named E-seul sniffs a spread of tarot cards before one paw comes to rest on some of the cards. 

Across the table, tarot reader Hwang Soo-kyung picks up the cards touched by E-seul and begins interpreting what the dog might be feeling — part of a growing niche offering in South Korea known as "pet tarot."

For E-seul's owner, Ryu Su-mi, the reading was a chance to better understand her dog, a rescue that has experienced trauma.

"Since this little one has trauma, unlike other dogs, I was really curious," Ryu said. "I wanted to know what he was thinking. He sleeps next to me every night and follows me around like a bodyguard, and I was genuinely curious whether that's hard for him. I thought he might get tired, so I was really curious about those kinds of things," explained Ryu.

Pet tarot, a growing niche offering at fortune-telling shops, is driven by a surge in pet ownership as fewer South Koreans choose to have children in a country with the world's lowest birth rate, deterred by costly housing and education.

Government surveys showed that 29.2% of households were raising pets this year, up from 17.4% in 2010. Hwang, who runs the Ace Sophia fortune-telling parlour, said animals choose cards through smell or touch.

"Through their sense of smell, they take actions such as placing a paw on a certain part or, if they are more active, lifting their nose. So you can think of it as a method in which we read the cards that they have chosen in that way," Hwang said. 

At another session, a dog named Khan sniffs at the spread of tarot cards before placing a paw on one. His owner, Ahn Hye-joo, waits anxiously to learn the meaning of the card, which depicts a dog chasing its owner. As Hwang explained what she read as Khan's emotions, Ahn said the session changed the way she viewed Khan's behaviour.

"When it comes to communicating with tarot, this is what tarot means to me," said Ahn. "If I had previously understood only about five simple emotions, such as 'this one is sick,' 'happy,' or 'sad,' tarot now seems to speak to me in at least 20 or 30 different kinds of language."  

Hwang, who opened her shop in 2014, said demand for pet tarot has grown as owners increasingly view pets as family members, or sometimes their only companion, and want to better understand what their animals may be thinking.

No clients have ever limited themselves to just one session, she added, at a cost of 20,000 won ($14) each.

She designed a deck of cards for pets, who sometimes include turtles and reptiles, in response to customers' queries whether she could discern their animals' thoughts.

If a pet chooses a card featuring swords, for example, that can signal the animal is physically unwell, perhaps suffering from joint pain, Hwang said.

“They become closer than anyone else like our closest friends and partners. So when we form a deep relationship with our pets, we often have a lot of psychological anxiety about what they think of us and whether we are truly treating them well.”

Camera and Editing: Daewoung Kim; Production: Jungmin Ryu, Heejung Jung;  Writing: Hyeyoon Cho, Heejung Jung/Reuters