(FORTUNE Magazine) – In Europe, where specially prepared home-cooked meals were often the norm for every member of the family, the rise of the working woman was greeted for years with snarls and whimpers. Dogs and cats accustomed to fancy food were being forced to make do with, gasp, mere leftovers. But now, in an effort to get Continental pet owners to switch to prepackaged products, Europe's leading pet food makers are trotting out astonishingly gourmet stuff.

There are special chocolates for dogs, available in white or dark, and a line of lactose-reduced kitty milk, which comes in tiny milk cartons. Vitakraft, a German pet food maker based in Bremen, offers flavored fruit sticks for hamsters. Effem, a division of U.S.-based Mars, has come up with a line of canned cat food that includes crabmeat with prunes. If that seems too extravagant, Effem also offers toppings for cat chow, called Whiskas Crunch, that let busy families add the right flavor and texture to more mundane offerings. Later this year an enterprising French brewery, Brasserie Fischer, will introduce alcohol-free beer -- brewed especially for dogs and cats and available in three-packs. With Europe's economy expected to contract by half a percent this year, pet food sales could be one of the rare rays of light. Last year sales grew 9% on average in the EC's eight major countries, according to an industry report prepared by A.C. Nielsen. Pet food makers did more than $5.1 billion all told. Says Richard Connell, a consumer market analyst for Arthur D. Little in Brussels: ''It's strange, but some people want their pets to live better than they do.''