You guys probably can obviously hear it. I have a North American accent, specifically, I have a Canadian accent. However, I live in the U. S. now, and the U. S. has some stereotypes, but we're not going to get into some of those because they're not all great. But one of them is that we humanize our pets too much.

We treat them like they are children. Which I don't know. It's a good thing and a bad thing in my opinion. But I have two pets. I have a dog and a cat. They're both rescues. I used to work at an animal shelter. And so I have strong feelings about this topic. And so that's how I got the idea for today.

Today we are talking about pet culture in the U. S. and just how massive the industry is. I didn't realize how massive the industry is until I was researching this, but, anyways, I have my notes let's get into it.

First off, for starters, we're going to talk more specifically about companion animal ownership, not like fish and hamsters, which are still legitimate pets, but. We're not going to be, at least I hope not, we're not like treating hamsters or fish like, like kids, right? We see this more with dogs and cats, maybe a parrot or a horse or something.

You know what I mean? So the USA has one of the highest rates of pet ownership in the entire world with 67% of all households having at least one pet. That's a lot. That is a lot. Dogs and cats are definitely the most popular pets you'll see here. But then you also see a lot of fish and birds and those other smaller animals, those are also pretty common. And honestly, we would do anything for them. Especially my millennial generation. Our dogs, our cats, are so important to us. I remember reading this news article recently, and it was titled, Millennials are buying houses so they can give a backyard to their dog. That's the level.

of love we have for our pets. With that, love, that devotion comes with a massive pet industry, and you guys, Americans spend billions of dollars with a B, billions of dollars every single year on their pets. So things that make up this industry, we're looking at, different kinds of pet food brands, which I'll talk about later, like the novelty pet food brands, veterinary costs, pet insurance, like you can buy health insurance for your pets. What else here? Oh, grooming services, and the last one's like luxury goods, like clothes and stuff for your pets.

Girl, maybe if this doesn't work out, I can get into Pets. The pet business. Oh, I forgot one. Pet sitting. We have an app called Rover, and I actually used to work on Rover, but it's a service where you can book your dog walker or house sitter, like dog sitter.

And basically you have a profile, you list all the things that you're willing to do, like medication administration, or behaviors that you can work with, and you can take dogs out for walks, and you make 30 bucks in 30 minutes. Not exaggerating and what else? You can house sit.

You can stay at their houses while someone's away on vacation and take care of their pets. You can offer boarding services. So the owner can drop their dog or cat off at your house. And you can watch them at your house for them. It's huge. I don't know.

Maybe you guys have that too in your country, probably. Your own version of it. You'll also see a lot of pet friendly policies in the U. S. What I mean by this is pets are accommodated for. In like jobs, like certain jobs, they'll list it as an incentive or like a perk that you can bring your dog with you to work.

I would not be productive if my dog was with me at work. No way. You can, oh what's another one? Like hotels being more accommodating for pets, or restaurants, they'll allow dogs outside on the patio with you when you're eating, stores allow you to bring pets in with you instead of leaving them outside in the car when it's hot out... things like that. So that's what I mean by pet friendly accommodations or pet friendly policies.

So the craziest one is the work. I don't know. I would not be productive if my dog was at work with me. But maybe some people are and it works out, I don't know. I don't know. Okay, and this next point here it's controversial I guess or not controversial. Polarizing I guess is a good way of saying it like everyone has an opinion on this Okay, and that is referring to pet humanization, which that's just a fancy way of saying like what that is referring to is, a dog is a dog. They're not a person. A cat is a cat. They are not a person. But people are referring to them as their babies, or their fur babies, or their children, so that's what pet humanization is, okay?

And let's share my opinion on that. I refer to myself as My pet's mom. I do. I do. Okay, so when I'm calling in to the vet saying, Hey, I need to take my pet into the vet. Hi, this is Rachelle. I'm pet's name's mom. That's an example of it. I don't consider my pets my children though. But That's my opinion. Some people who are like, I don't know, mothers of five are like, You have no idea what it's like to have kids. Pets are not kids. Which obviously they're not, but who cares? Let people call them their children. It is not that big of a deal, okay? Yeah, Americans treat their pets as family members and cater to their needs and preferences at their beck and call. And it's true. I do that. I really do.

Okay, so this is definitely evident in the growing demand of premium pet food, which I was referring to earlier. So you'll see commercials where no animal should be eating dried food every single meal. Every single day for their entire life referring to traditional commercial dog food, right? And so their brand is refrigerated whole foods for your dog, which I'm not saying is bad.

But like My first degree was in animal science It's like it's a really long name but part of that was veterinary science and nutrition for animals. It depends on the brand and depends on what the ingredients are in that brand, but dog food is typically very well balanced for what your dog needs.

Now, can you supplement that food with other things like this refrigerated food? Yeah, totally. Add a scoop or two of that to their normal dog food. Great for your dog. But having that as the only source of food for them that refrigerated food as the only source of food. That's not good But it's a huge it's a huge industry that you will definitely see a lot of it and it's on the rise It's increasing quite a bit.

You'll also see organic treats coming out, designer brands creating clothes for their pets or leashes for their pets just think of luxury goods for your pets, okay? Things like that. It's just targeting my generation, who has all this extra money, not me, to devote to their animals, because they want to.

Okay, last topic, my personal favorite, and the one that I am most passionate about, and that is animal rescue. Animal rescue in the U. S. is huge, I keep saying that. It's so huge. I'm team rescue, but there's certain situations, there's certain scenarios, certain preferences, certain rationales that I agree with for purchasing purebred dog or a designer dog, okay?

But you'll see shelters everywhere. I would say every major city has an animal shelter. So these homeless pets are either brought in from the street as strays because they don't have a home they live in and then you'll also see pets surrendered by their old owners. But anyways, pet adoption and pet rescue is very promoted here in the U. S. There's a lot of different agencies that have commercials on the TV, commercials on YouTube, whatever, promoting animal rescue, and this just helps with getting the awareness out for animal rescue.

Oh, and with that being said, most major cities, they have animal welfare officers. They work for the city government and bring animals into shelters, and they can also do cases where they investigate abuse, so that kind of stuff. But anyways, those are my biased opinions.

That's my whole spiel on animal rescue. I could go on, but I'm not going to. Let's get into the last part of this and that is like the reasons why someone might want to purchase a dog in the U. S. or the culture behind purchasing bred dogs in the U. S.

a lot of times, they think that buying a puppy, a purebred puppy will give them this best shot of having a well behaved dog. And, I don't know. I don't know. I don't like this. I don't agree with it at all. There's people who just should not raise animals.

They just don't know how to train behaviors. I'm blunt. I'm really blunt, and that's what I think. They don't know how to train behaviors. They don't know how to be, like, stern. They need to be stern. Because they don't know how to, and then from that comes all these bad behaviors. So what I'm getting at is that I'll take my dog, for example. She's a rescue. She was so abused. She was so abused and so neglected. She had horrible behaviors from that abuse. And then, me, working with her, me training her, she's now like the best dog. The best dog. Zero bad behaviors. And she's a rescue. She's a mutt I don't even know what she is. She's a mixture of many things. But a lot of times, these designer pets or these purebred dogs, they're not bred by people who should be breeding these dogs.

We call these backyard breeders and it's just people who don't pay attention to genetics. And they don't breed for behavior, they just breed to make money, and they just don't care. And you'll see this everywhere look in Facebook Marketplace, look in, your city's online newspaper, wherever you can post advertisements everyone's selling their pets. Like, all of them are selling puppies, and they don't know how to pay attention to genetics, they don't know how to breed for behavior.

And this is what comprises most of dog breeding in the U. S. And for that, I definitely disagree with this opinion that raising a purebred puppy is going to give you the best dog. It's I I don't agree with it whatsoever. And I have first hand experience with that.

It's not just this unbacked opinion. Then on the flip side of that, We have these amazing, passionate, loving breeders who have been doing it for years. They are specialists in their breeds. They do home visits, they interview these potential parents, they breed them for what their breed is actually meant for.

Maybe you're a hunter and you want a hunting dog, like you will spend really good money on getting a good hunting dog, right? But it's someone who's very reputable, very experienced. In that scenario, that's when I would say, yeah, totally, buy a bred dog. Otherwise, there's so many puppies in the animal shelter. Just get a puppy from there. That's my opinion. Also, with that, and this is the last thing I'll say, and I will get off my soapbox, okay, thank you for listening You'll see these backyard breeders who don't pay attention to health, right? They don't really care what the health is. They don't pay attention to how healthy these puppies are in the future.

Versus a mutt that you get from an animal shelter, with mutts meaning they have many different types of breeds. Like many different types of dogs, many different breeds. With breeding different breeds, many of them, comes genetic diversity. And with genetic diversity, typically, it gives you a healthier dog.

Okay, so mutts live longer than these purebreds. Especially these purebreds that are purchased from people who have no business in breeding. Soapbox over. That was probably, that section is probably as long as the entire podcast. Now you know my stance on that. What is your opinion? Were you blown away that we spend billions of dollars on animals every year in America?

Do you guys sleep with your pets in bed? Because I do. Is that like taboo in your country? I want to know. Let me know. Say if it is or not down below in the comments. I want to hear it. Anyways yeah. That's what I want to say. That's it. Thanks for listening, and I will see you guys in the next episode.