According to a 2017 survey, Millennial males in the United States were more likely to be cat and/or dog owners than their female counterparts. Some ** percent of male Millennial survey respondents stated that they owned a cat and ** percent owned a dog. In comparison, ** and ** percent of female respondents were cat and/or dog owners, respectively.

Pet ownership rates in the United States

In 2019, ** percent of all households in the United States owned a pet . This is over a *** percent increase from 1988. Almost ** percent of surveyed American pet-owning households had a dog in 2017 , making it the most popular type of pet to own in the United States. Cats and freshwater fish were the second and third most popular type of pet, with a ** and ** percent share of the vote respectively.

Number of pets owned

Freshwater fish were the most kept pet in the United States in 2017/18 in terms of volume. In total, Americans were estimated to own approximately ***** million of the aquatic animals in that year. This large volume is no surprise when considering their small size and minor cost increases when owning more than one fish as a pet. Cats and dogs were the second and third most owned pets, with around **** and **** million living in U.S. households respectively.

IntroductionLate adolescence is a crucial period during which individuals connect with new communities. Furthermore, their mental health has lasting effects on their overall well-being. Involvement with family and the local community plays a significant role in shaping adolescents’ personalities and well-being. Additionally, pets, such as dogs and cats, function as social catalysts and increase interactions with family and the local community. We hypothesized that pet ownership would increase involvement with family and the local community and thereby impact adolescents’ personalities and well-being.MethodsTherefore, this study investigated whether owning dogs or cats was related to well-being through increased involvement with family and local community members in late adolescence. Data were collected via a questionnaire administered to high school and university students. The questionnaire included questions on basic information about adolescents and their families, pet ownership experience, family and local community involvement, well-being, cultural estrangement inventory, and general trust.ResultsStructural equation modeling revealed that adolescent women who owned dogs or cats had higher well-being and general trust through their involvement with their families. Although previous research reported that men who had experienced pet ownership in childhood were more sociable in old age, the effect of pet ownership on men was not observed in this study.DiscussionDuring late adolescence, when individuals experience many connections with new communities, the effects of pets may temporarily decrease. Therefore, future cohort studies should examine the effects of pets on each age group.

This survey shows the distribution of pet ownership in Australia in 2015, by gender. During this survey, ** percent of male respondents and ** percent of female respondents in Australia answered that they owned a cat.

As of August 2024, the majority of pet owners in China were women. Meanwhile, the share of male pet owners had increased from around ** percent in 2021, to nearly ** percent in 2024.

According to a survey conducted by Rakuten Insight in South Korea in 2022, dogs were the most popular pet among both men and women, with around **** and **** percent of respondents respectively. Cats were following and were slightly more popular among the women in this survey.

The global market for dog physiological pants is experiencing robust growth, projected to reach $100.8 million in 2025 and maintain a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 8.0% from 2025 to 2033. This expansion is fueled by several key factors. Increasing pet humanization, where pet owners treat their animals more like family members, drives demand for products that enhance pet comfort and well-being. Concerns about urinary incontinence in older dogs, especially females, and the need for effective solutions during estrus cycles significantly contribute to market growth. Furthermore, the rising popularity of reusable and sustainable options, coupled with innovations in material technology offering better absorbency and comfort, are shaping market trends. The market is segmented by pant type (reusable and disposable) and target gender (female and male dogs), reflecting the specific needs of different dog breeds and life stages. The North American market currently holds a substantial share, driven by high pet ownership rates and consumer spending on pet products. However, emerging markets in Asia-Pacific are showing promising growth potential, fueled by increasing pet adoption and a growing middle class with greater disposable income. Competition within the market is relatively fragmented, with companies like DCC Health & Beauty, Pet Magasin, and Vet's Best vying for market share alongside smaller players and niche brands. The continued growth in the dog physiological pants market is expected to be influenced by evolving consumer preferences and technological advancements. The increasing awareness of pet health issues and the demand for hygienic solutions will further propel market expansion. While pricing and the potential for substitution with other incontinence management solutions pose some restraints, the overall positive outlook indicates a significant opportunity for market players to capitalize on the growing demand for specialized dog apparel. Successful strategies will likely involve product innovation, focusing on eco-friendly materials, targeted marketing towards specific dog owner demographics (e.g., senior dog owners), and expanding distribution channels to reach a wider consumer base, including online platforms. The segment for reusable pants is poised for particularly strong growth due to increasing consumer awareness of environmental sustainability.

Demographics of owners of Bulldogs, French Bulldogs and Pugs in the study population.

Domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) can recognize basic phonemic information from human speech and respond to commands. Commands are typically presented in isolation with exaggerated prosody known as dog-directed speech (DDS) register. Here, we investigate whether dogs can spontaneously identify meaningful phonemic content in a stream of putatively irrelevant speech spoken in monotonous prosody, without congruent prosodic cues. To test this ability, dogs were played recordings of their owners reading a meaningless text in which we inserted a short meaningful or meaningless phrase, either read with unchanged reading prosody or with an exaggerated DDS prosody. We measured the occurrence and duration of dogs’ gaze at their owners. We found that, while dogs were more likely to detect and respond to inserts that contained meaningful phrases spoken with DDS prosody, they were still able to detect these meaningful inserts spoken in a neutral reading prosody. Dogs detected and responded to meaningless control phrases in DDS as frequently as to meaningful content in neutral reading prosody, but less often than to meaningful content in DDS. This suggests that, while DDS prosody facilitates the detection of meaningful content in human speech by capturing dogs’ attention, dogs are nevertheless capable of spontaneously recognizing meaningful phonemic content within an unexaggerated stream of speech. Methods Stimuli 70 owners were recorded reading aloud one of three short (15-20 second) passages from the standard psychology text “the rainbow passage” (Fairbanks, 1960), with the test phrases produced after 7-12 seconds as part of the text. The non-meaningful (control) phrases were “[Alfie / Bertie], pass me a coffee!” and the meaningful phrase was “[Dog’s name], come on then!”, chosen as these words had the highest frequency of use by English-speaking owners during interactions with their dogs and were therefore likely to be meaningful to all dogs (Mitchell and Edmonson, 1999). The duration of the target phrases was between 0.7s and 2.5s (mean = 1.4s, std. dev. = 0.2), depending on the speaker’s natural talking speed and the dog’s name (e.g., “Badger” takes longer to say than “Max”). In total, three different extracts of the same length were used and the phrases were included within the sentences, i.e., “There is, according to legend, a boiling pot of gold at one end. People look, but no one ever finds it. When a man looks for something beyond his reach, his friends say, [Bertie, pass me a coffee] / [Dog’s name, come on then], he is looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Throughout the centuries people have explained the rainbow in various ways.” (See ESM for extracts 2 and 3.) The time it took the owners to reach the inserted phrase depended on the speed of their natural speech (mean = 8.7s, std. dev. = 1.2s) but was consistent across readings by the same individual. The choice of abstract was randomised but if the dog had a name too similar to Alfie or Bertie, the other name was chosen as the control (e.g., the participant dogs Betty and Beans heard Alfie, not Bertie, in their control phrase). For each dog, the same extract was used for all conditions. Voice recordings were made on a Zoom H4N-Pro handheld recorder (Zoom) in a sound-proof booth on campus at University of Sussex. To avoid habituating the dogs to the speech, owners were recorded reading the passages without the dog present in the recording booth and were asked to imagine they were speaking to the dog. Owners were asked to produce the target phrases in a) their normal reading voice prosody (NRP) and b) dog-directed speech prosody (DDS). There was an expectation that the DDS speech would show increased pitch and range compared to NRP and that this would be more interesting to the dogs (Lesch et al., 2019). Thus, two recordings were made for the Pilot Study: DDS-meaningful and DDS-control; four recordings were created by each owner for the main studies: NRP-meaningful, NRP-control, DDS-meaningful, and DDS-control. All the voice recordings were clipped and aligned using the sound software Audacity (Mazzoni and Dannenberg, 2015) and the amplitude normalized to -9dB. Mean and coefficient of variation of fundamental frequency (foCV = (fo standard deviation / fo mean ) *100) were measured in Praat (Boersma and Weenink, 2009). foCV provides a standardised measure of fo variability independent of fo height that takes perception into account (i.e., a modulation of 10Hz around 100Hz is perceptually equivalent to a modulation of 100Hz around 1,000Hz). Values are presented in Table 2. Within sexes, mean fo differed significantly between target phrases (female: F3,108 = 68.3, p < 0.001; male: F3,43 = 43.0, p < 0.001). However, mean fo did not differ significantly for control vs meaningful within DDS and NRP registers (LMM: p > 0.05 for all), but DDS and NRP phrases did differ significantly each other (p < 0.001 for all). For male owners, coefficient of variation did not differ between any comparison (p >0.25 for all comparisons, F3,43 = 0.6, p = 0.592 overall). For female owners, coefficient of variation did differ significantly overall (F3,127 = 5.1, p = 0.002) but only for DDS-Meaningful to all others (p <0.010 for all DDS-meaningful pairwise comparisons), while other pairwise comparisons were non-significant at p > 0.2 for all. Thus, DDS speech differed to NRP speech but phrases within speech registers were not significantly different except for female coefficient of variation. Linear mixed models were applied to a subsample of a) 5 female and b) 5 male voices and were used to confirm that the mean fundamental frequency and coefficient of variation of the inserted phrases presented in NRP did not differ significantly from that of the rest of the read speech. (Mean fundamental frequency LMMs: female - F1,14 = 2.9, p = 0.108; male – F1,14 = 0.6, p = 0.449. Coefficient of variation LMMs: female - F1,14 = 2.4, p = 0.141; male – F1,14 = 2.9, p = 0.111.) Table 1 Mean and standard deviation of mean and coefficient of variation of fundamental frequency for a) the target phrases produced by all speakers and b) the target phrase and entire speech of 10 speakers. Participants Fifty-three privately-owned dogs were recruited through Facebook adverts, flyers, and personal contacts, and tested in a designated testing room on campus at University of Sussex. A total of 57 owners (17 male, 40 female) participated, with a maximum of 3 dogs per owner. Trials were discarded if the dog was distracted by non-stimuli sounds or events, e.g., background noise (n = 1), the dog was barking continuously (n = 1), or if they moved out of camera shot (n = 2). We retained data from 49 dogs (24 females and 25 males), from 39 breeds and cross-breeds, aged between 9 months and 12 years old (mean = 4.1 years, SD = 2.9 years) in our analyses (see ESM Table 1 for details following Volsche et al.’s (Volsche et al., 2023) suggested format). Protocol Dogs were introduced to the room and given up to 20 minutes to freely explore and habituate to the space. Once they were considered to be relaxed, the trials began. No dogs appeared to be stressed either before or during the trials. During all trials, the owners wore noise-cancelling headphones (TaoTronics) and listened to music while seated in a chair at 90 degrees to the dog (Figure 1), with their back to the dog and instructed not to turn to look at the dog. A single Behringer Europort MPA40BT-PRO speaker was set on a tripod behind the owner’s head and set to conversational volume (approx. 65dB measured at dog’s position). The experimenter stood out of the dog’s sight line and played the stimuli from an Apple MacBook Pro. The dogs were held on a loose lead by the handler and allowed some freedom of movement. While the handler was consistently one of two researchers, their familiarity to the dog could vary from “completely unfamiliar” to “person the dog met on more than one occasion but do not have a close relationship to” if the dog had participated in a previous study before or belonged to a friend of the researchers. The dogs were positioned either to the left or the right of the speaker, and this position was cross-balanced across dogs within studies, with half to the left and half to the right. The dogs’ reactions were filmed on a Sony FDR-AX100 camcorder (Sony) on a tripod positioned approximately 1.5-2m from the dogs’ starting position. Trial interval depended on the dogs’ disposition. If the dog was calm, trial interval was less than 2 minutes, but if the dog was restless or distracted, a short break of a few minutes was provided, and the dog was sometimes taken out of the room and returned. As some owners brought more than one dog and some dogs heard more than one owner, we considered each pairing of owner and dog to be a unique dyad, and thus the unit of comparison was dyad not owner or dog. Figure 1 Experimental set-up in testing room at University of Sussex with the speaker positioned to the dog’s left. In half of the trials, this arrangement was reversed with the speaker positioned to the dog’s right. The owner was seated facing away from the dog wearing headphones and listening to music while the dog was positioned behind their chair and held on a loose lead by a handler. The speaker was positioned behind the owner’s head to simulate them speaking. Whether the dogs gazed at their owner or not in the 10s period following the inserted phrase was used as the broadest metric of attention, while duration of gaze was used as the index of attention. None of the dogs were looking at or fully oriented towards their owner immediately prior to the onset of the target phrase, which would have been a criterion for dropping the trial. The trial ended 10s after the onset of the inserted phrase. Pilot Study: The effect of meaning on dogs’ responses to content presented in

IntroductionDim light vision as assessed by proxy and clinical tools is commonly impaired in older humans and impacts quality of life. Although proxy visual assessment tools have been developed for dogs, it is unclear if they are sensitive enough to detect subtle visual dysfunction in older dogs. We sought to determine if a newly designed proxy visual function questionnaire could detect age-associated differences in visual behaviors in varying lighting conditions in dogs.MethodsA 27-item questionnaire (the dog variable lighting questionnaire, dogVLQ) was designed to assess visual behavior in dogs in different lighting settings. We conducted the dogVLQ, a previously validated visual function questionnaire the dog vision impairment score and performed light- and dark-adapted electroretinography (ERG) on a subset of dogs. Questionnaire scores were analyzed for dog age associations using correlation analysis.ResultsQuestionnaire responses from 235 dog owners were obtained (122 female, 112 male dogs), 79 of which underwent ERG (43 female, 36 male dogs). Bright light visual behavior was significantly associated with light-adapted bright flash ERG amplitudes, visual behavior in near darkness was associated with dark-adapted ERG amplitudes. The dogVLQ identified worse vision in older dogs in bright light, dim light, and darkness; predicted onset was younger for vision in near darkness. Older dogs had more difficulty navigating transitions between lighting conditions.DiscussionSubjective dog owner assessment of visual function associates with objective measurement of retinal function in dogs and supports reduced vision-mediated behaviors in older dogs.

The impacts of high ambient temperatures on mortality in humans and domestic animals are well understood. However, much less is known about how hot weather affects mortality in wild animals. High ambient temperatures have been associated with African wild dog Lycaon pictus pup mortality, suggesting that high temperatures might also be linked to high adult mortality. We analysed mortality patterns in African wild dogs radio-collared in Kenya (0°N), Botswana (20°S), and Zimbabwe (20°S), to examine whether ambient temperature was associated with adult mortality. We found that high ambient temperatures were associated with increased adult wild dog mortality at the Kenya site, and there was some evidence for temperature associations with mortality at the Botswana and Zimbabwe sites. At the Kenya study site, which had the highest human impact, high ambient temperatures were associated with increased risks of wild dogs being killed by people, and by domestic dog diseases. In contrast, temperature was not associated with the risk of snare-related mortality at the Zimbabwe site, which had the second-highest human impact. Causes of death varied markedly between sites. Pack size was positively associated with survival at all three sites. These findings suggest that while climate change may not lead to new causes of mortality, rising temperatures may exacerbate existing anthropogenic threats to this endangered species, with implications for conservation. This evidence suggests that temperature-related mortality, including interactions between temperature and other anthropogenic threats, should be investigated in a greater number of species to understand and mitigate the likely impacts of climate change. Methods Study sites We analysed adult African wild dog mortality at three sites: the Ewaso ecosystem, Kenya; the Okavango Delta, Botswana; and Savé Valley Conservancy, Zimbabwe. All three study sites fall within semi-arid savanna ecosystems.

Field Data Collection At the Kenya study site 130 African wild dogs (56 female, 74 male) from 41 packs were monitored using either Vectronics GPS collars (GPS Plus, Vectronic Aerospace GmbH), Televilt GPS collars (GPS-Posrec, Televilt, Lindesberg, Sweden), Berlin, Germany), or VHF radio-collars (Telonics, Mesa AZ, USA). All three collar types included a mortality sensor programmed to emit a characteristic radio signal if stationary for ≥4h. At the Zimbabwe study site, 59 African wild dogs (22 female, 37 male) from 34 packs were monitored using either radio collars or GPS collars (African Wildlife Tracking, Rietondale, Pretoria, South Africa). Using radio-collars (Sirtrack, Havelock West, New Zealand) 31 African wild dogs (10 female, 21 male) from 16 packs were monitored at the Botswana site. Collars were fitted using the procedures outlined in McNutt (1996), Woodroffe (2011) and Jackson et al. (2017). At all three sites, packs were located every 1-2 weeks where possible. Any collared animal found dead was carefully examined with the aim of establishing a cause of death. At the Kenya site necropsies were carried out on all dead individuals located. At the Botswana site cause of death was only recorded in cases where the death was directly observed, or during disease outbreaks, and therefore the majority of causes of death were unconfirmed. Most deaths at the Botswana site are likely to be due to natural causes given the low human activity in this area. For all three sites, the date of first detection of a mortality signal from the collar was used to estimate the date of death when not observed directly, and where this was not possible an estimated date of mortality was made based on the date midway between the last sighting, or the last detection of the radio-collar without a mortality signal, and the discovery of the carcass or collar. If any study animal was not observed in its resident pack for over 30 days, no mortality signal was detected, and no carcass was found, it was considered lost from the study and censored from the day of the last observation (Kenya: n=51, Zimbabwe: n=34, Botswana: n=8). If a carcass or collar was discovered more than 30 days after the last sighting (n=2), the animal was considered lost from the study due to the inaccuracy of the date of death and was censored from the date of the last sighting. Group and individual characteristics were recorded at each site. At all three sites dispersal status of the individual was recorded. Individuals were defined as dispersing if they left their pack for multiple days and did not return, otherwise they were defined as resident (Woodroffe et al. 2019b). Group size – either the pack size for resident individuals or the dispersal group size for dispersing individuals – was recorded for each individual, and was defined as the number of adults (>12 months in age) in the group. African wild dog pup-rearing involves the pups being left at a den site for the first three months of life while the majority of the rest of the pack hunt daily, bringing food back to provision the pups. This pup rearing period is referred to as denning. For each pack, denning periods were identified using either direct observations or GPS-collar data. At the Kenya site a number of other individual and pack characteristics were also monitored. Individuals’ alpha status was inferred based on consistent close association with a specific individual of the opposite sex, coordinated scent marking, and reproductive activity; all animals not identified as alpha were considered subdominant. African wild dog age was known for many individuals, otherwise it was estimated from tooth wear when the individual was collared (Woodroffe et al. 2019b). Age range at collaring ranged from 1 to 7 years old (mean: 2.43 ±1.27). The age of the majority of individuals at the Zimbabwe and Botswana sites was not known. Weather data is from weather stations within the field site at Mpala research station at the Kenya site (detailed in Caylor K., Gitonga, J. and Martins 2016), 30km outside the study site at Maun airport for the Botswana site and the Middle Sabi Research Station, 12km from the study area boundary at the Zimbabwe research site.

Data Processing The average mean temperature was taken on a 90 day rolling average at the Kenya and Zimbabwe sites, and a 30 day rolling average at the Botswana site. Rainfall was summed over a 30 day rolling time period at the Kenya and Botswana sites and a 90 day rolling period at the Zimbabwe site.

Protein-Protein, Genetic, and Chemical Interactions for McCann ME (2004):In vitro effects and in vivo efficacy of a novel cyclooxygenase-2 inhibitor in dogs with experimentally induced synovitis. curated by BioGRID (https://thebiogrid.org); ABSTRACT: To determine cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) selectivity, pharmacokinetic properties, and in vivo efficacy of ML-1,785,713 in dogs.21 healthy male and female mixed-breed dogs and 24 healthy male Beagles.Selectivity of ML-1,785,713 for inhibiting COX-2 was determined by comparing the potency for inhibiting cyclooxygenase-1 (COX-1) with that of COX-2 in canine blood. Pharmacokinetic properties were determined after i.v. (2 mg/kg) and oral (8 mg/kg) administration in female mixed-breed dogs. In vivo efficacy was evaluated in male mixed-breed dogs with urate crystal-induced synovitis. Prophylactic efficacy was evaluated by administering ML-1,785,713 two hours before induction of synovitis whereas therapeutic efficacy was determined by administering ML-1,785,713 one hour after induction of synovitis.Blood concentrations that resulted in 50% inhibition of COX-1 and COX-2 activity in vitro were 119.1 microM and 0.31 microM, respectively, and selectivity ratio for inhibiting COX-2 relative to COX-1 was 384. ML-1,785,713 had high oral bioavailability (101%), low systemic clearance (77 mL/min/kg), and an elimination half-life of 5.9 hours. ML-1,785,713 was efficacious when administered prophylactically and therapeutically to dogs with urate crystal-induced synovitis.ML-1,785,713 is a novel, potent COX-2 inhibitor that is the most selective COX-2 inhibitor described for use in dogs to date. ML-1,785,713 has oral bioavailability and low systemic clearance that is comparable to other non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. It is effective after prophylactic and therapeutic administration in attenuating lameness in dogs with urate crystal-induced synovitis. Drugs that specifically inhibit COX-2 and not COX-1 at therapeutic doses may have an improved tolerability profile, compared with nonselective non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.

Increased public and political attention to animal abuse has led to changes in legislation that recognize animals as sentient beings. Abusing animals is legally classified in Spain as an environmental crime against flora, fauna and protected areas. Consequently, research into human-animal relationships and animal abuse has also increased. Stereotypes about animals influence how humans treat them. The aim of this study is to analyze the similarities and differences of the perceptual spaces that people spontaneously construct when considering the abuse of protected animals, pets and farm animals, and then to compare them with the space of a prototypical environmental crime such as illegal dumping. Participants were 528 men and women aged between 18 and 88 years old, mostly resident in a highly environmentally protected territory. They completed an online questionnaire containing scenarios, based on press releases, of the four categories of environmental crime. Each participant was randomly asked to rate the scenarios from one of these categories in terms of severity, justification, indignation, intentionality, punishment, likelihood of personal intervention and calling the police. The questionnaire also included questions on socio-demographic data and a social desirability scale. Data were analyzed using multidimensional scaling and the results showed that a three-dimension solution was the best for the four perceptual spaces. However, the content, label and order in which each dimension emerged in the shaping of each space varied. Most pet abuse scenarios were perceived as highly reprehensible and deliberate, with the abuse of dogs and cats being more unjustified and deserving personal intervention than of other companion animals. Scenarios involving the abuse of protected and farm animals elicited less consistent reactions, influenced by the perception of their instrumentality for humans, such as for food or profit. The comparison with illegal dumping suggests that animal abuse is an environmental crime, but with specific characteristics. In contrast with other environmental crimes, its victims are sentient beings and the harm they suffer is both observable and immediate. Future research should explore, in diverse samples and territories, the key variables for effective interventions to prevent and control the social problem of animal abuse.

According to a survey on pet ownership conducted by Rakuten Insight in January 2022, ** percent of the female respondents in Malaysia indicated that they owned cats. On the other hand, ** percent of the male respondents indicated that they owned dogs.

A survey conducted in July 2020 investigated pet food purchasing patterns in Italy. When looking at consumers' gender differences, women seemed to be purchasing pet food more than men. In particular, ** percent of female respondents would purchase dog food compared to ** percent of males and ** percent of females would purchase cat food compared to ** percent of males. Moreover, as much as ** percent of male respondents would not purchase any pet food.

The total number of prescribing events and three most commonly prescribed drugs by age group (count; %) in dogs attending primary-care veterinary practices in the VetCompass™ Programme in the UK during 2013 (n = 496).