Abstract
Pet ownership, veterinary use, and beliefs regarding veterinary care were elicited through the use of a nationally representative survey of 997 U.S. residents. Fifty-one percent of respondents have or had a dog in the past five years and 37% have or had a cat in the past five years. Over ninety percent of cat and dog owners had visited a veterinarian at any time, but only about 40% visited a veterinarian annually. With the rise of options in veterinary medicine, including low-cost options for vaccines and spay/neuter, further study and analysis of pet-owners use of veterinary care is warranted. Fifty-four percent of dog owners and 40% of cat owners who went to a low-cost spay/neuter clinic also went to a veterinarian/clinic/practice. This finding suggests that pet-owners who use low-cost options do so in a manner that supplements rather than replaces traditional veterinary care. Logit models were employed to evaluate the relationship between dog and cat owner demographics and visiting a veterinarian. The probability of visiting a veterinarian increased with age and income for dog owners.
Keywords
consumer behavior; pet care; procurement of veterinary services; veterinary medicine; veterinary services
Date of this Version
3-13-2020
Recommended Citation
Bir, Courtney; Ortez, Mario; Widmar, Nicole Olynk; Wolf, Chris; Hansen, Charlotte; and Ouedraogo, Frederic B., "Familiarity and Use of Veterinary Services by US Resident Dog and Cat Owners" (2020). Department of Agricultural Economics Faculty Publications. Paper 20.
https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/agedocs/20
Comments
This is the publisher PDF of Bir, C.; Ortez, M.; Olynk Widmar, N.J.; Wolf, C.A.; Hansen, C.; Ouedraogo, F.B. Familiarity and Use of Veterinary Services by US Resident Dog and Cat Owners. Animals 2020, 10, 483. Published CC-BY by MDPI, the version of record and ADA Title II compliant version is available in HTML at DOI: 10.3390/ani10030483.