America Loves Pets to the Tune of $45.4B
Every year the American Pet Products Association (APPA) releases their estimates of how much Americans spend on their dogs, cats, and other pets. These numbers were one of the things we looked at when deciding to start Fido Factor. Of course, as dog owners we knew that the market for dog friendly locations & services was growing but having some external validation is always good too. Interestingly, these numbers do not include many of the businesses Fido Factor lists. It is still tough to quantify how much dog owners spend on dog friendly dining, hotels, or other categories. Again, as active dog owners we've seen how loyal dog owners are to the business that accommodate them. For example, at least once a week we choose a restaurant or coffee shop where we can dine with our dog. If you're a pet friendly business we'd love to know how your business has grown. In the future we plan to aggregate some official numbers based on the business that work with us. We hope that seeing these numbers will help convince the rest of the businesses to become dog friendly.
According to the 2009/2010 APPA survey:
62% of US households own a pet; 39% own a dog
Total Pet Industry Market Size
2009 - $45.4B
2008 - $43.2B
2007 - $41.2B
Annual Dog Ownership Costs
$453 - Surgical Vet Visits
$217 - Food
$225 - Kennel Boarding
$219 - Routine Vet
$127 - Groomer/Grooming Aids
$77 - Vitamins
$66 - Treats
$41 - Toys
As urban dog owners these numbers are not even close to what it costs to care for our citified Vizsla. For example, in San Francisco doggie daycare costs about $500 per month. Our "routine" vet care seems to be about $100 per visit and when our puppy came down with kennel cough and pneumonia the vet bill was $1500. If you think that sounds expense, the NY Times recently reported that some French Bulldog (Frenchie) owners spend up to $40k over their dog's lifetime. Needless to say owning a dog can be expensive but it is worth every penny!
November 18th, 2009 - 13:08
I remember learning a few years ago that Americans spend more money each year on cat food than diapers; I assume the same is true of dog food. Also, there are more cats than dogs in American, but more households with dogs (meaning households are more likely to have multiple cats; that’s kind of represented in your data above). Apparently there’s something like 60-80 million dogs in the US (I forget the exact number, it was 80 million cats).
February 11th, 2010 - 14:54
Those ‘annual dog ownership’ costs either look like monthly costs or like they were averaged over the whole population (including non-dog owners)…. sooo off!
August 16th, 2010 - 13:54
I am thinking that it is an average overall.
It would be amazing to see what the numbers would be if we could take a poll of the entire United States.
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