A campaign will begin on November 16 to check that Beijing's citizens have licenses for their dogs, do not have more than one dog per household and are not illicitly operating pet businesses in China's capital, local police has announced.

On Wednesday afternoon, police made house calls in Beijing's luxury villa areas to check on illegal dog keeping. They discovered six large, unlicensed dogs.

The city will implement a "one dog" policy for each household in nine major management zones, aimed at fighting rabies which claimed 318 lives nationwide in September.

The nine zones are Dongcheng, Xicheng, Chongwen, Xuanwu, Chaoyang, Haidian, Fengtai, Shijingshan and Yizhuang Economic Development Zone. No large or ferocious will be allowed there.

In the nine designated zones, only smaller pet dogs no more than 35 cm tall are permitted. Dangerous dogs or large dogs taller than 35 cm, such as mastiffs, Dobermans, Saint Bernards and Great Danes, are banned.

The policy says only visually-handicapped people or those with serious physical handicaps are allowed to keep guide dogs or service dogs.

Beijing now has more than 550,000 registered dogs, up 20 percent on the previous year.

The Ministry of Health website shows that 2,660 people in China died of rabies in 2004, compared with 159 reported fatalities in 1996.

In the first three quarters of this year, the country recorded 2,254 rabies cases, an increase of 29.69 percent over the same period last year.