(FORTUNE Magazine) – In the beginning there were books. Then came CDs and videos. Travel vacations, toys, and prescription drugs followed. The latest e-commerce market to hit the Net? Pets. Until now pet owners haven't had a Website that will answer questions, quell concerns, and sell chewy toys for Fido and Fluffie. Now get ready for the pet portal wars.

In the past six months at least six new companies catering to pet owners have launched. They promise everything from dog beds and reptile harnesses to holistic health-care tips, information on traveling with your beloved, and pet food. Nobody is trying to sell an actual pet over the Internet. Yet.

Silicon Valley venture capitalists are worked up over the moneymaking possibilities and have been studying the largest of the pet portals, trying to figure out which will be the Amazon or eBay of the animal kingdom. Is it Pets.com, which got $2 million in backing from Hummer Winblad and undisclosed millions from Amazon, which now owns 50%? (Don't confuse Pets.com with Pet.net, which was spawned by the Idealab incubator in Pasadena.) Or is it Petstore.com, which raised $10.5 million last month in a round of financing led by Battery Ventures? How about AcmePet.com, which has the largest audience so far (500,000 separate visitors per month, they say) but has yet to choose a venture capital firm? Or Paw.net, which recently merged with the oddly named PogoPet? "It's a big, high-margin business, and people are wacky about their pets," says Bob Barrett, a partner at Battery Ventures, who eyed several pet portals before choosing Petstore.

In between the storm of meetings in VC mecca, Menlo Park's Sand Hill Road, the pet portals have also been talking to general-interest portal players like InfoSeek and Yahoo and big pet concerns like Petsmart and Petco about possible partnerships. "The pet people have been all over me," exhales one portal company executive. "They're all doing deals." The fur, as you have probably already guessed, will soon be flying.

--Melanie Warner

For the latest Silicon Valley news, check out Valley Talk on fortune.com.