Vets and Economics
by Michael Schaffer

In One Nation Under Dog, I spend a lot of time talking about the onward and upward progression of various sorts of pet spending. The book, in fact, started out life as being in part a chronicle of American excess. After a couple years of reporting, I realized I was on to something a lot more complicated–a story about our changing ideas of family, health, nurturing, education, the law, etc., all of them manifested in the seemingly goofy subject of how we treat our pets. And, as it happens, between the time I filed the book at the time it’ll be published, excess went out of style. This might have petrified me a few years ago, but right now my sense is that the Great Recession won’t change the basic contours petkeeping world very much at all.

I’m still waiting for good data, of course, on what’s been going on with pet spending. (I’ll be able to check some of them out at next month’s Global Pet Expo). My hunch is that you’ll see some of the bling-y areas take a big hit.  But I bet some of the other areas will be fine. Once you’ve decided that your basic responsibilities to your four-legged family member include nutritious food, it’s hard to go back to serving what you’d disdained as garbage, no matter how rotten things are. All the same, I’ve picked up all sorts of sad stories about foreclosed families giving up pets because their new rental units won’t allow animals, and veterinary clients unable to afford pricey and crucial procedures.  

That last category, though, may actually be helping spur growth of an industry that has been one of petworld’s economic darlings over the past decade: Veterinary insurance. In my book, I chronicle the explosion of new firms on the market, which the industry trade group has predicted will grow to $500 million next year from $80 million in 2002. Here’s a story suggesting that the desire to hedge against future expenses may be strengthened by the recession. Oddly, one thing I found in my reporting was that Europe, which lags behind the US in most aspects of petmania, was well ahead in the growth of pet insurance, notably in Sweden and the UK. One theory about why is that humans there are much more accustomed to group coverage than we are. Another way petkeeping reflects human lifestyle.