What a Cat Costs Us

According to recent “research,” dogs are 32% more likely to get a treat than cats.

Mars, maker of Snickers, other sweet snacks, and pet foods, hopes to change all of that.

Pet Owners

While dog households are at an all time high, more of us also have become cat parents:

To really know what it means to be a cat, Mars paired employees with cat parents and studied cats’ taste buds. More traditionally, staff shared PowerPoint presentations, and less typically, executives wore cat ears during the workday. Through the flavored water they drank, cats showed researchers their taste preferences. Mars also figured out why cats like tuna and ignore sugary treats.

One result was a lickable spoon with more likable food.  By enhancing the parent/pet bond, it shows cat lovers that their pets are not necessarily aloof if offered what they really want:

Our Bottom Line: Consumption Expenditures

As a yardstick of the dollar value of the goods and services a nation annually produces, the GDP has four components. At 70% (or so) in the U.S., its largest slice is the consumption expenditures that you and I spend. Next, gross investment is mainly a business category except for its residential section. Then, government spending is the third big category. And finally, net exports–exports minus imports–the fourth component, is typically negative.

Decades ago we called our dog Fido. Now he is Frank and so too is our child. Perhaps knowing what we name our pets can explain why we spend more on them:

Each year, some of us spend close to $3,000 on our cats:

Then, Rover did the breakdown:

Returning to where we began, I suspect that Mars Lickables increased GDP consumption spending.

My sources and more: Thanks to WSJ for inspiring today’s post on pet owners. From there, I went to several pet sites for ownership statistics. Although their numbers differed considerably, the trend toward more cats was consistent. Similarly, it was tough to find recent spending numbers but everywhere they appeared high. So I chose one source for the number of owners and another for spending but note that the precise numbers are debatable.