Once again, America’s spending on pets has grown despite the recession, with a 5.4 percent increase in 2009, according to the American Pet Products Association.
The APPA’s annual comprehensive review shows spending on animals, food, supplies, veterinary care, groming, boarding and pet sitting jumped to $45.5 billion in American in 2009, up from $43.2 billion in 2008.
The association projected another increase — of nearly 5 percent – in 2010.
While growth came in all categories, health-care spending showed the biggest increase, with an 8.5 rise in spending on veterinary care — a result of medical advances leading to a greater range of services available.
“From CAT scans, root canals and cancer surgery to antibiotics, anti-depressants and even grief counseling, pet owners have more medical choices and spending options than ever before. This leads to an anticipated growth of another 6% in this category for 2010,” the APPA said.
As services available for pets continue to become more parallel to those for humans, the gap in the quality of life between humans and their pets is quickly disappearing, said APPA President Bob Vetere.
“We feel our pets give us so much it is no longer enough to simply give them a treat. We want to keep our pets healthier, longer, and are willing to spend what it takes to make it happen,” he said.
Service-based businesses like dog walkers, pooper-scoopers, trainers and even massage-therapists are booming, and day care, pet walking and pet sitting continue to be in high demand — parly a result of pet owners working longer hours.
The American Pet Products Association (APPA) is a not-for-profit trade association serving the interests of the pet products industry since 1958. Its mission is to promote, develop and advance pet ownership and the pet product industry.
Lee Williams, one of 4 million Americans who lost their jobs last year, used the time to devote his full energy to his hobby — making dog treats for his allergy-prone Boxer-Labrador mix.
Since then, Boxador Bites, have taken off, KMOV in St. Louis reports.
Stephen Huneck, whose paintings, sculptures and woodcut prints of dogs celebrated his deep love for animals, took his own life last week in New Hampshire.
Huneck, of St. Johnsbury, committed suicide Thursday in Littleton, N.H. His wife said he was despondent after being forced to lay off employees at his Dog Mountain studio and Dog Mountain chapel in Vermont.
“Like many Americans, we had been adversely affected by the economic downturn,” Gwen Huneck wrote in a letter Friday announcing his death. “Stephen feared losing Dog Mountain and our home. Then on Tuesday we had to lay off most of our employees. This hurt Stephen deeply. He cared about them and felt responsible for their welfare.”
Two days later, he shot himself in the head while sitting in a parked car outside the office of his psychiatrist, the Burlington Free Press reported.
A native of Sudbury, Mass., Huneck started out whittling wooden sculptures and later dog-themed furniture. In 2000, he built the Dog Chapel – a miniature version of the 19th-century churches that dot Vermont’s landscape — from wood harvested from his 175-acre Dog Mountain property.
The chapel, a popular tourist stop, has vaulted ceilings, stained-glass windows with images of dogs pieced into them, and handcrafted pews, also built by Huneck. A sign outside reads: “Welcome all creeds, all breeds. No dogmas allowed.”
Dog lovers would make the trip to Vermont just to see the chapel, many writing notes to their deceased pets and attaching them to the walls. Huneck never took them down.
Huneck advocated for dog-friendly lodging, water dishes at parks and highway rest stops, and dog-friendly dining.
“Really, my agenda is to make Vermont the France of America, as far as the way we relate to our dogs,” Huneck told The Burlington Free Press in 2006. “I think it would be wonderful if people could bring their dogs into restaurants. … Every time I eat at a restaurant I feel really guilty because I know those scraps would make a friend of mine really happy.”
Huneck’s seven books — including “Sally Goes to the Beach,” “Sally Goes to the Farm” and “Sally Gets a Job”– featured woodcut prints of his beloved Labrador retrievers, accompanied by quirky captions.
“He was one of the most creative and active members of the Vermont crafts community,” said Jennifer Boyer, co-owner of Artisans Hand, a craft gallery in Montpelier. “I appreciate how much energy he put into his works, which were whimsical and sardonically funny. He really had a unique sense of humor.”
In 1994, Huneck fell down a flight of stairs and was in a coma for two months. Although he recovered fully, he had to relearn everything from how to walk to how to sign his name, according to his Dog Mountain website.
After waking up from the coma, Huneck immediately began working on a series of woodcut prints he had envisioned before the accident, based on his dog Sally. The first in the series was called “Life Is A Ball.”
After this near death experience, Stephen began work on the Dog Chapel, a place, as he described it, “where people can go and celebrate the spiritual bond they have with their dogs.”
(Photos from dogmt.com)
Most Americans say they plan to spend less for holiday gifts this year, but a new poll indicates the family dog is even more likely than last year to find something under the tree.
Sixty percent of dog owners — more women than men — plan to buy their pooch a holiday gift, according to an Associated Press-Petside.com poll. About 40 percent of cat owners planned on shopping for their pet for the holidays, the poll said.
All in all, 52 percent of pet owners plan to buy their animals a holiday gift — up from 43 percent last year.
The increase in pet gifts comes despite the fact that 93 percent of Americans say they plan to reign in spending on gifts this season, according to a separate AP poll.
According to the AP-Petside.com poll, 62 percent of female owners said they would probably buy their pet a gift, while just 40 percent of the men said they would.
What do they have in common? I’ll leave that up to you to decide. But here’s a hilarious story, with a happy ending, that involves all three.
It all began in September when Dallas businesswoman Dawn Rizos learned she was to receive an “Entrepreneur of the Year” award from American Solutions for Winning the Future, a conservative group led by Newt Gingrich, the former U.S. House speaker.
Rizos didn’t think it all that odd that the organization would be honoring her business, legally known as DCG, Inc., but doing business as The Lodge, one of the finest strip clubs (I’m told) in all of Dallas.
American Solutions — designed to “rise above traditional gridlocked partisanship to provide real, significant solutions to the most important issues facing our country” — was one of the big pushers of that national tea party, and it serves as the political arm of Gingrich’s empire as author, pundit and consultant .
The fax from American Solutions explained that Rizos was being honored as “Entrepreneur of the Year” for her “success in building [her] business and recognition of the risks you take to create jobs and stimulate the economy.”
But apparently American Solutions didn’t know that Rizos’ DCG was stimulating more than the economy; it had sent the fax to the wrong DCG. (In point of fact, The Lodge does stimulate the economy, as well, with 150 employees, and contracts with an additional 570 dancers or entertainers, one of whom they award with a college scholarship annually.)
Winning the award from the conservative think (but don’t double check) tank, came with a $5,000 fee, payable to American Solutions (a mailed check, since Newt doesn’t wear a garter belt), and for that Rizos would have had the chance to “dine privately with Newt,” and have his ear on ways to “turn this country around.”
Rizos paid, and she booked an airline reservation as well.
Then the conservative group learned they had honored the way wrong company, stripped The Lodge of the award, and promised to pay Rizos back the fee and what she had paid for the airline ticket.
Now, the owner of the topless club has decided to pass that refunded money on to Animal Guardians of America’s sanctuary for rescued dogs in Celina, about 35 miles north of Dallas. It will be to use to build a shelter for pit bulls and named in honor of the former House speaker, the Associated Press reported.
“Newt’s Nook — A Home for Pit Bulls” is now under construction.
Rizos says she’ll invite Gingrich to the formal dedication in early November.
