Recent polling<\/a> shows most New Zealanders think of their pets as family members, mirroring similar surveys in Australia and the US.<\/p>\n\u201cWhile some pet owners are switching to more affordable pet food brands or scaling back on treats and extras, the overall picture is one of people making personal sacrifices to continue providing the best care they can for their pets,\u201d Le Long said.<\/p>\n
Consumer NZ campaigns adviser Abby Damen has previously told Newstalk ZB people shouldn\u2019t underestimate the ongoing responsibilities and costs involved in having a pet, including pet food, vet visits, grooming, training and pet sitters.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s not even covering all the exciting things you\u2019ll probably find yourself wanting to buy a pet. I certainly have spent more than I probably should on my miniature Schnauzer.\u201d<\/p>\n
SPCA scientific officer Alison Vaughan told Newstalk ZB last year the organisation regularly received calls from people asking for help with rising costs and adopting animals from a reputable rescue agency was often the cheapest option in the long term.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have cats at home, and they are just as happy with a cardboard box as the fancy bed. Just spend time with them \u2013 that\u2019s the most important thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Michael Sergel is Newstalk ZB\u2019s business reporter. He\u2019s been covering business, politics, local government and consumer affairs for over a decade.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Only 26.4% have made similar cutbacks to luxuries for their pets. The survey of more than 1100 New…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":582328,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[50,138,13982,4187,802,16123,2082,22220,13484,29137,286810,5829,111,139,69,384,52548,31252,16654,1436,1515,165,27051,8229,61,31090,1339,24750],"class_list":["post-582327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-animals","tag-business","tag-continues","tag-cost","tag-costs","tag-cover","tag-for","tag-going","tag-higher","tag-keeping","tag-luxuries","tag-many","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-people","tag-pet","tag-pets","tag-provide","tag-rise","tag-surge","tag-their","tag-themselves","tag-they","tag-to","tag-treats","tag-without","tag-zealanders"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=582327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582327\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/582328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=582327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=582327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=582327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}