CAT’s mission is to work with our community to save the lives of homeless, sick and injured cats and kittens by offering shelter, adoption, foster, hospice, and veterinary services to end needless feline euthanasia in our community.
Whether you’ll admit it to your friends or not, more than half of you reading this right now will give your pet a gift this upcoming holiday season. We do this because Fluffy and Fido are a part of the family.
More families have a pet than ever before; in fact 71.4 million households have at least one. That’s over 12 percent more than a decade before. “Now more than ever, people consider pets an important part of the family and are still providing for their faithful companions even in these trying times,” reports Bob Vetere, the present of the American Pet Products Association, which surveys pet owners annual to track trends veterinary care, buying habits, and overall attitudes towards pets.
CAT’s informal online survey (conducted November 2010) revealed that 71 percent of local pets will receive a gift compared to 52 percent nationally.
While the national trend indicates more dogs than cats will get gifts, respondents of our survey are, naturally, cat owners. “We get them gifts because we love them and its fun to get them new things and watch them play with them,” commented one pet owner.
Even friends and family members get into the spirit of pet presents. Janet, who doesn’t currently have pets, always gives her sister’s dogs gifts over the holidays. Another responder chimed in that “even our friends will send gifts to our pets because we longer exchange ‘people gifts’ with each other since the holiday has gotten out of hand.”
Some local pets will receive practical items such as a new bed, collar, or even a scratch post. Most pets, however, will get a new toy. The most popular ones mentioned, in case you still need ideas, are: nyla bone, catnip mice, balls, feather wand, or stuffed animals (for those dogs who just love to tear them apart, one pet owner suggested getting them at garage sales and washing them – her dog doesn’t know they are not “new”).
Dog or cat, it looks like most will receive something new this holiday season. If you are looking for great gifts for your cat, the Cat Adoption Team’s in-shelter store has a great selection at great prices. If you are looking for a dog gift, check out the items in the lobby store at Washington County’s Bonnie L. Hays small animal shelter in Hillsboro. The best part of shopping at an animal shelter: 100 percent of the proceeds from your purchase help the animals at these shelters.
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