Pet owners’ defining psychographic is the “pets as family” mindset. Long before COVID-19, a large majority of owners considered their pets as full-fledged family members. The pandemic-related traumatization of minimal human contact, maximum anxiety over personal health and financial insecurity then had Americans depending on their pets more intensely than ever for companionship and comfort. Packaged Facts’ July–August 2024 and November 2024 Surveys of Pet Owners show 72% of dog owners and 70% of cat owners agreeing that their pets are “part of the family.” (See Table 1.)
TABLE 1: The attitudes and feelings between cat and dog owners and their pets is largely the same, according to surveys.
About half of overall dog or cat owners agree with related psychographic statements about having pets:
- 59% of dog owners and 58% of cat owners agree that they are happier because they have pets.
- 54% of dog owners and 52% of cat owners agree that they see their pet as their friend.
- 52% of dog owners and 51% of cat owners agree that they see themselves as parents to their pets.
- 49% of dog owners and 47% of cat owners agree that their pets keep them from being lonely.
- 47% of dog owners and 45% of cat owners agree that their pets are central to their home life.
For these and other reasons, 54% of dog owners and 55% of cat owners see themselves as having pets as long as they can. Moreover, the fact that dog owners and cat owners (including those who own both) are almost in lockstep with these attitudes suggests that the U.S. pet industry has historically overshot the mark in its focus on dog ownership for market growth, though recent trends favorable to cat ownership have helped right the balance.
Growth of the human-animal bond
As striking as the high degree to which dogs and cats are incorporated into home life is the strengthening of the human-animal (or, more scientifically, animal-animal) bond over time. Among Baby Boomers, 87% of dog owners and 84% of cat owners consider their pets as family, compared to 57% of dog owners and 52% of cat owners among Gen Z adults. Similarly, 76% of dog owners and 70% of cat owners who are Baby Boomers consider themselves happier because they have their pets, compared to 46% of dog owners and 49% of cat owners among Gen Z adults.
A similar pattern applies to the desire to have dogs or cats as long as possible, with a higher percentage of Baby Boomers and Gen Xers indicating that they want to have pets as long as they can, compared with Millennials and Gen Zers. This finding reinforces the argument that focusing narrowly on puppies, kittens and new pet owners for business development, at the expense of senior pets and pet parents, can mean leaving key growth opportunities on the table — including in product segments that have otherwise flattened out in unit sales.
There are, of course, attitudes that hold pretty steady across generations. Perhaps surprisingly, though, these include attitudes where Baby Boomers might be expected to lag behind their younger, digitally native and social media-centric counterparts. Among pet owners across generations, for example, the needle doesn’t move that much in the share who include their pets in their social media accounts and postings — ranging among dog owners from 25% of Boomers to 23% of Gen Zers, and among cat owners from 18% of Boomers to 22% of Gen Zers.
More generally, the percent agreeing that pets are an important part of their social identity ranges among dog owners from 32% of Boomers to 24% of Gen Z, and among cat owners from 25% of Boomers to 22% of Gen Z. So a fairly consistent proportion of dog and cat owners across generations consider pets not just part of the family, but part of who they are.