Man's Best Friend

With countless problems facing America today the US government offers billions in tax deductions for qualifying “pet” expenses. Dog spa hotels and shrinks, when 8+ million are unemployed.

Americans now spend $41 billion a year on their pets—more than the gross domestic product of all but 64 countries in the world.

The Pet Economy

That puts the yearly cost of buying, feeding, and caring for pets in excess of what Americans spend on the movies ($10.8 billion), playing video games ($11.6 billion), and listening to recorded music ($10.6 billion) combined. "People are no longer satisfied to reward their pet in pet terms," argues Bob Vetere, president of the American Pet Products Manufacturers Assn. (APPMA). "They want to reward their pet in human terms."

That means hotels instead of kennels, braces to fix crooked teeth, and frilly canine ball gowns. Pet owners are becoming increasingly demanding consumers who won't put up with substandard products, unstimulating environments, or shoddy service for their animals. But the escalating volume and cost of services, especially in the realm of animal medicine, raises ethical issues about how far all this loving should go.

Thanks to passionate consumers like that, the quality gap between two-legged and four-legged mammals is rapidly disappearing in such industries as food, clothing, health care, and services. The race now is to provide animals with products and services more closely modeled after the ones sold to humans. Most of the pet business world's attention is directed at the country's 88 million cats and 75 million dogs.

THOROUGHLY VETTED
Fancy food products are easy targets for critics of indulgent pet owners. But a far more controversial issue is animal medicine, especially at a time of urgent national debate about human health care. Americans now spend $9.8 billion a year on vet services. That doesn't include the over-the-counter drugs and other supplies, which add $9.9 billion in costs.

And for some pet lovers, no medical procedure is too extreme. Plastic surgeons offer rhinoplasty, eye lifts, and other cosmetic procedures to help tone down certain doggy features, from droopy eyes to puggish noses. Root canals, braces, and even crowns for chipped teeth are also becoming more popular.

If there's still any doubt whether the pampering of pets is getting out of hand, the debate should be settled once and for all by Neuticles, a patented testicular implant that sells for up to $919 a pair. The idea, says inventor Gregg A. Miller, is to "let people restore their pets to anatomical preciseness" after neutering, thereby allowing them to retain their natural look and self-esteem. "People thought I was crazy when I started 13 years ago," says the Oak Grove (Mo.) entrepreneur. But he has since sold more than 240,000 pairs. "Neutering is creepy. But with Neuticles, it's like nothing has changed." Nothing, except there's a fake body part where a real one used to be.

GRAVY TRAIN
Once acquired as sidekicks for kids, animal companions are more popular now with empty-nesters, single professionals, and couples who delay having children. What unites these disparate demographic groups is a tendency to have time and resources to spare. With more people working from home or living away from their families, pets also play a bigger role in allaying the isolation of modern life. About 63% of U.S. households, or 71 million homes, now own at least one pet, up from 64 million just five years ago. And science is starting to validate all those warm feelings with research that documents the depth of the human-animal bond.

http://www.businessweek.com/print/magazine/content/07_32/b4045001.htm?chan=gl




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