SOUTH WEST IS BEST FOR UK’S
PAMPERED PETS
-
West Country is Pets’ Best
Place to Live
- One in five ‘love pets as much as children’
-
North of Scotland is pet
purgatory
It’s
pet paradise in the West Country, but a dog’s
life in the North of Scotland according to a new
nationwide survey into the lives of the UK’s
pets.
Coming hard on the heels of Channel 4’s Best
and Worst Places to Live, the survey by
YouGov for the UK’s largest provider of Pet
Insurance, Petplan, has identified the West
Country as the home of the UK’s most pampered
pooches and cats. The survey talked to 2,000
pet owners nationwide about their pets’ diet,
living conditions, gifts and lifestyle.
The West Country’s Pampered
Pets
-
One in five owners ‘love
pets as much as their children’
-
West Country pet owners
are the most likely in UK to consider a
pet-related pre-nuptial agreement
-
Most likely to prepare
hand-cooked, organic food for pets
-
Most likely to give pets
Christmas and birthday presents
-
Most likely to give pets
a specially designed bed
-
Most likely to buy a
family car to suit the pet
-
Most likely to pay a
month’s wages in rewards for lost pets
-
More than a quarter have
pet insurance
One
in five of the West Country’s pet owners say
that they love their four-legged friends ‘as
much as their children’. This may account for
the fact that 17 per cent of owners in the West
Country have included their pets on pre-nuptial
agreements – the highest proportion in the UK.
This
affection for their pets also shows in the way
they are fed: 20 per cent of West Country pets
have developed a taste for hand-cooked meals -
the highest percentage in the country. And
almost ten percent of their lovingly-prepared
meals are made with pure organic ingredients.
With
more than 80 per cent of the South West’s dog
owners spending more than £10 per month on food
for their pets – one of the highest levels in
the country – they are clearly prepared to put
their money where their heart is.
If a
pet were lost, one in five per cent of pet
owners in the South West would happily stump up
a month’s wages to get it back – again, the
highest proportion in the country.
Almost three quarters of pets in the South West
can look forward to a Christmas present this
year, with almost a third also getting a
birthday present. One in five owners will
happily spend more than £10 a time on pet
presents.
It’s
a very different outlook for pets in the North
of Scotland where canny owners take a far less
sentimental view of their pets.
It is
perhaps not surprising that pet owners in the
North of Scotland reported a higher percentage
of ‘nervous pets’ than anywhere else in the UK.
North of Scotland’s Pet
Purgatory
-
Less money per dog spent
on food than anywhere in UK
-
Owners are least likely
in the UK to offer a significant reward
for a missing pet
-
Pets less likely to be
micro-chipped and insured than anywhere
else in UK
-
Pets least likely to
enjoy hand-cooked food
-
Deceased pets least
likely to be ‘formally’ buried
-
Highest proportion of
owners who say their pets are nervous
TV
Vet Scott Miller,
Petplan’s Veterinary
Consultant, comments:-
“The
age old perception of the ‘soft south’ and the
‘tough north’ certainly seems to hold true for
pet owners in the UK. Pets certainly do seem to
have it better down south.
“One
surprising conundrum leaped out at me though: a
higher proportion of owners in the North of
Scotland have taken their dog to a vet for tooth
or gum work in the last year than any other
group in the UK. Yet the proportion of pets in
the North of Scotland which have health
insurance to cover vet visits is the lowest in
the country.
“You’d think the canny Scots would have cottoned
on to the fact that they could be saving money
at the vet if they had some insurance in place!”
Pet Plan
pet insurance |
