26/08/2026
Happy National Dog Day. I should declare my bias immediately. I live with several dogs. My house is loud, full of hair, and there is almost never a moment when someone is not leaning against my leg while I am trying to work.
So this is not a day I observe from a distance. I have skin in this game, and paws all over it.
Which is why one number in APPA's 2026 Dog Report stopped me.
Dog owners now spend a larger share of their pet budget on veterinary care than on food. 29% against 27%.
That looks like a narrow gap. It describes something real about what a dog has become in a household. Food is what you give an animal. Health is what you give a family member.
What makes it striking is the year it happened in.
This was a tight year. Dog owners moved food buying to supermarkets and discounters, brought grooming back into the home and hunted value almost everywhere they could find it. They found savings in nearly every category.
And then they protected the part that keeps the dog well.
Ownership grew anyway. 71 million U.S. households now have a dog, 53% of all households, roughly 4 million more in a single year. Gen X dog ownership rose 12%, which tells you this stopped being a young person's story some time ago.
I spend my working life on both sides of these deals, sitting with founders who built something real and with buyers deciding what it is worth. Health share rising while everything around it trades down is the kind of signal that changes how a growth case should be written. It says the durable value in this sector sits in nutrition, early diagnostics and prevention. Not because those are fashionable categories, but because they are the last things a household gives up.
Every model I look at is ultimately describing people like me. Someone at home, surrounded by dogs, quietly deciding what they will not compromise on.
Today, though, the numbers can wait.
To the dogs who make us laugh at ourselves, who insist on going out in the rain, who know before we do that something is wrong, and who end up in the middle of every family photograph. Mine included, all of them, constantly:
Thank you. Happy National Dog Day. 💜
