pet connection

Thanks to my pal Patti for flagging this piece from Michael Schaffer, a former city hall reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer (”The Inky,” in industry speak) who has been dogging the massive Global Pet Expo for three shows now.  From The Daily Beast, his report:

[I]n this year of extreme hardship, someone has to have some faith. By the time you got to the obscure patches of the multi-acre Global Pet Expo show floor, you tended to have had a lot of such conversations: A bright idea, a lot of elbow grease, and a limitless belief in Americans’ willingness to buy for their animals even as they scrimped for themselves. The pet industry appears to be weathering the storm. Show organizers say prepaid attendance is actually up over previous years. “We’re as recession-resistant as any industry I can think of,” says Bob Vetere, whose American Pet Products Association hosts the annual show.

Thus, as if I’d stepped into a pre-crash time capsule, I can report that I have seen dog beds in the shape of giant Crocs clogs. I have examined toys that promise mental enrichment for fishes. I have listened to all sorts of promises about the organic, all-natural, holistic, and/or human-grade ingredients in a vast range of new pet foods. I have looked over high-tech dog collars loaded with a behavior-regulating pheromone. I have seen Chinese herbal veterinary medicines whose come-ons tout “ancient wisdom…proven results.” I have met a man who says he used to be the world’s biggest manufacturer of Glad-Bag cartons and watched him work the floor in the name of his new product: doggie smoothies.

And I found myself sufficiently sucked into the spectacle’s envelope-pushing technology that I really wanted to ask follow-up questions of the man carrying a box marked “URINE OFF: THE NAME SAYS IT ALL.”

I had, in other words, a very successful couple of days at the Global Pet Expo.

As measured by media attention, Global Pet Expo was only the second-biggest pet-oriented event of last week. But unlike the Westminster Dog Show, the trade fair allows us to accurately assess the state of our modern pet-crazed country.

Here’s the rest.

This view was what our team came away with as well. Time will tell.