Last month in Orlando at Global Pet Expo, Bob Vetere, president of the American Pet Products Association, revealed the trade group’s annual snapshot of the pet care industry, as well as the executive summary of the association’s special two-year in-depth overview of who has pets, what kind, what they spend on them and why.

How many of us are there? Pet ownership is at an all-time high of 72.9 million households — up 2.1 percent since the last survey two years ago — and in those households, the number and variety of pets has also increased. Not surprising, that means the amount of money spent on these companion animals has barely hiccupped during the Great Recession, and is predicted to top $50 billion this year. For perspective, the amount of money spent on pets tops that spent on jewelry, candy and hardware, combined, and overall is the eighth-largest retail sector.

“I’m constantly amazed at the resilience of this industry,” said Vetere in releasing the APPA figures. “Not only did we weather the recession very well, but we’re poised to take advantage of the recovery.” (Read more…)

And “The Buzz” from Dr. Marty Becker and Mikkel Becker is that people believe training, not breed, matters most when it comes to dangerous dogs:

A poll by The Associated Press and Petside.com supports the idea that dangerous dog legislation should target all problem dogs, not just breeds believed by some to be a problem. About three-quarters of respondents believed all dog breeds are safe if properly trained, and 60 percent said all breeds should be allowed in residential communities. Only 38 percent believed breed-specific bans were appropriate. As for pit bull terriers, the No. 1 dog target by breed-specific legislation, age plays a large part in how the dogs are viewed: 76 percent of those under 30 believe pit bulls are safe, while only 37 percent of seniors believed the same.

You can read all this and more in this week’s Pet Connection!

Would you like to meet Nina Ottosson? She’ll be in our booth today at 3 p.m.

Now you’re talking! I’m on my way!

I’m not one to be wowed by “celebrity”; in fact, I asked our Ericka Basile to look in on the whole Cesar Millan shebang because I couldn’t be bothered. Victoria Stillwell was being honored at the media reception I skipped. The year before … Rachel Ray. Whatever. Got nothing against any of them, just couldn’t care less. Same with actors, sports starts, politicians. Not even actors/sports/politicians, and as proof I offer Arnold Schwarzenegger, who I almost literally bumped into outside a Sacramento eatery a couple years ago and all I said was, ” ‘Scuse me, governor” and kept walking. (He didn’t say anything, but one of the bodyguards grunted.)

But Nina Ottosson? I had to know: Why? When? How?

When I told our David Greene I was going to interview Nina Ottosson, he observed it was the first time he’d ever seen me at all star-struck. Well, sure. I mean seriously, does someone just wake up one morning and decide to start inventing the coolest line of dog toys ever? How does that happen, exactly? So off I went, in search of answers. And yes, to meet Nina Ottossson.  David tagged along to shoot a video interview, and Ericka to get some pictures.

Nina  was to be at the booth of  The Company of Animals, a U.K. based business founded by Dr. Roger Mugford, himself more than a little bit famous in dog training and behavior circles, and also as charming and friendly a person as you’d care to meet. He showed me a picture of his prized Devon bull and we talked a few minutes about sustainable small-holding farming while we waited for someone to find where Nina had gone. She turned up shortly, and happily started talking about how she came to design interactive dog toys, stopping now and then to find the word she was looking for in English (she’s Swedish).

First surprise? She isn’t — or at least wasn’t — a dog trainer or designer when she started, some 20 years ago.

“I was a normal dog owner, a nurse by training,” she said. “I had two children very quickly, and I didn’t think my dogs were getting what they needed. I was always aware that dogs have four legs and one brain, and they all need exercising. So I began.”

She labored in obscurity for many years, she said, and the initial reaction to her work was not encouraging. “I was working as a nurse by day and working on this at night,” she said, waving her arm at a display of her toy collection. “People said I was crazy. But I believed so hard this was good for dogs, and I kept at it for 10 years without much success.”

Finally, a behaviorist saw one of her products and contacted her … then a couple of veterinarians … the word spread and she was on her way. About five years ago she finally broke through with some international recognition, and now, with those two children all grown up, she’s making a living at the work she loves.

“It’s about building relationships,” she says. “And also recognizing that all dogs need something to keep them busy, working and happy. These are toys all dogs can use, even the very old. And they’re toys every pet-owner can use, as well. In fact, I’m really happy to tell you that these toys are used by people who have service dogs. A disability doesn’t keep anyone from helping a dog get some exercise. In Sweden, we’re now using these toys in nursing homes, with stroke victims using them to interact with dogs, and it’s really helping them!”

Nina has two new toys coming out soon. She showed them to me but made me promise not to write about them, so I won’t. But I will say I’ll be among the first to order them, but my dogs won’t be the first to try them: Everything she designs is tested by her own Bouviers first.

Before we left the booth, she handed me a toy to use as a giveaway. It’s the Dog Brick, which just happens to be the toy McKenzie’s puppies played with when they were seven weeks old, and also the toy I sent with them to their new homes. I don’t really have time to set up running a real contest, so you’re going to have to trust me to draw randomly for a winner. Put “NINA OTTOSSON” in your subject line and send an e-mail with your name and mailing address to McKutie@gmail.com by 9 a.m. PT on Friday, and I’ll choose a winner then.

Bonus: Here’s Nina Ottosson talking about her creations:

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Image: Me and David interviewing Nina Ottosson (taken by Ericka)

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Oh, and speaking of Victoria Stillwell, she came by to say hello to Dr. Mugford while I was interviewing Nina Ottosson, so a got a couple minutes with her, too. Smart, charming and real. I liked her. A lot. Here we all are with Dr. Mugford:

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Right after this picture was taken, someone asked, “Can we get another without … uh … whoever you are?”Ha!

Then we meet and trim the list, cross-check each others’  lists, meet again, argue, negotiate and finally come up with 10 items, and then suggest to Dr. Becker which of them the team likes best. He then picks the No. 1 product, and usually adds or deletes one from the list of 10, and then it’s another mad hustle to get the vendors to pull products out of their booth for the press conference.

And then …

The “Good Morning America” producers huddle with Dr. Becker to figure out which of the 10 they’ll have on the show, a selection that’s always guaranteed to disappoint someone. Some hopes get dashed right away, when companies don’t get asked to send product to New York at all — the GMA folks don’t have time for 10 products, so they tend to choose those that make the best TV. But I always feel worse for the occasional product that makes it to the set, but doesn’t get on TV because of a last-minute time constraint or other problem. Last year, that was the Warm Whiskers Pet Therapy Jacket; sadly, the company website is gone, the domain name for sale. Would getting on “GMA” last year have made the difference? Who knows, and really, it’s not our job to think about it, or the “GMA” producers’, either. So it goes …

This year, the “GMA” folks asked for couple of products in addition to the Becker’s Best 10, making the competition for time even more keen. We’ll see this morning who makes the cut for the segment, when Dr. Becker appears on the show this morning. I’m guessing the Best in Show winner — the Food Maze from Hagen – will make it, since the top winner seems to have a leg up. I’m guess the Eyenimal pets-eye-view videocam will, too, just because of the “wow!” factor. Anything else is anyone’s guess.

Check it out this morning on your ABC affiliate. Dr. Becker will be back on the show April 15, for the official launch of “Your Dog: The Owner’s Manual,” after which he and I (and my dog McKenzie) start a two-month, 30-city book tour on a specially wrapped 45-foot “rock-star” bus.

More on that last thing soon, I promise!

When you’ve attended as many trade shows as I have, even the greatest of them can become a little dull after that 50th trip down the aisle. That’s when I don my alternative personality and become the fairy godmarketer. I leave the earthly carpeted floors of trade shows like the Global Pet Expo and enter the realm of my imagination in which exhibitors have unlimited budgets to jazz up their presentations –  building codes be damned.

My first act  as fairy godmarketer  would be to create an event to show off the tens of thousands of high-fashion cat and dog collars displayed at the show.  In display cases they are boring, but make them part of a fashion show sporting celebrities wearing their favorite collars, and old boy:  Lady Gaga has on a Cartier dog collar made from reclaimed meat packaging products with a diamond entrusted buckle. Charlie Sheen sports the “winner” collar, a no-holds bar clear transparent collar with a cocktail mixture swooshing around inside.

On the next stage (yes, there are several stages), there’s an international Bollywood musical going on. Beautiful men and women in eye-popping costumes are dancing and singing the story of how  Himalayan Dog Chew got its start in humble beginnings on yak and cow farms in the mountains near Nepal. The latter part, at least, is true.  Himalayan Dog Chew began in 2003 when of one its founders, Sujan Shrestha, took in an abandoned puppy off the streets in the eastern city of Ilam in Nepal. The puppy ate up the yummy treat that is a hard cheese-like product consumed by Nepali people, too. Supposedly, American dogs are loving it, too, and a side story is that the family venture is creating new and much needed economic opportunities for the yak and cow farmers.

As an urban chicken farmer, one of my favorite sections is the new hen houses and portable chicken coops. Over there, chef Bobby Flay is taking eggs freshly laid from the hundreds of exotic chickens on displayed and preparing omelets on demand for the crowds. The chickens ring a little bell with their beaks each time they produce a fresh egg.

There are so many games and toys to keep pets occupied that it’s hard to take them all in. But there’s one game for dogs that just can’t be overlooked—poker. Over in the games section, big screen televisions are relaying a blow-by-blow account of a high-stake poker game. The English bulldog appears to have the winning hand. C.M. Coolidge would be so proud.

Because my husband is a bicyclist, one of my favorite products at Pet Expo is the Bike Tow Leash, invented by mechanical engineer and service dog trainer Michael A. Leon.  You can hook your dog to your bicycle and the dog can trot along side-by-side the bike, without tipping the rider over. This is another family-owned and operated business venture. To demonstrate the product, guess who’s in the arena with his bike and greyhound, Spins? Well, of course, it’s Lance Armstrong and he’s wearing his black-and-white-spotted plastic wristband encouraging the world to be kind to animals.

Back by popular demand is the talent show and beauty contest to determine “America’s Veterinarian Idol.” Dr. Marty Becker, author of the new “Your Dog: The Owner’s Manual,” took the crown after a ventriloquist act in which his dog, Quixote, sang “Who Let the Dogs Out?” Dr. Becker barely moved his lips at all and the leopard colored Speedo swimsuit was a shoe-in winner in the beauty contest.

Another favorite of mine: Judge Judy puts parasites on the stand to determine culpability in spreading diseases. They were small, but you could definitely hear their testimonies with today’s high tech microphones.

Finally, at the end of the show, (in my head, anyway), there was a touching finale when school children from the Orlando public schools and singer Celine Dion performed “It’s a Beautiful World,” while truck after truck loaded up items to be donated by the exhibitors to local pet shelters. That last part is true about the kind donations of items that exhibitors don’t want to pack and ship home. They are donated locally to pet shelters.

All-in-all, another job well done by the fairy godmarketer.

While I was blogging last year, I couldn’t tell you at the time how intimidated I was by the whole scene. I mean, c’mon, I had scarcely been on the Pet Connection staff a few months.  Gina (the only one on the entire staff I already knew personally beforehand) was asking me to help cover the largest pet product show in the world, being held in a convention hall that seemed to be intentionally designed to get you lost in its cavernous expanse.  I barely knew who Ericka was until we met at breakfast before the first day — that breakfast staff meeting, an hour before hitting the show floor, was also when I met Dr. Becker for the first time.

After the first day, the only thought running through my head was how much my feet hurt. Somehow (and I have to admit, I don’t remember all the details), it all went ok. Better than ok, according to Dr. Becker and Gina. I learned some important lessons through the experience.

1. The big, glitzy, well-lit booths in the center of the hall have the cushiest carpeting and the best food for visitors (don’t be stupid – stop by there and look interested!), but for the cool stuff you have to walk to the perimeter areas. With the “little guys,” you won’t speak to paid representatives, but instead you get to chat with the president and founder of the company. They don’t just know the products, they built them themselves. That’s a whole different ballgame. Their passion for what they do is infectious.
2. Pace yourself and take very good notes. One small corner of the hall can easily take two hours, and in short order you can walk by hundreds of items spanning 15 categories. It’s all a blur after ten minutes. Good notes are key, so was thankful for my journalism training from way back when dinosaurs still roamed their earth…I wonder what their trade shows looked like?
3. Your experience isn’t everyone’s experience. In our meetings, one person (sometimes that person had a beard and was named David) would say “this was absolutely the dumbest product in the hall,” and two others would immediately point out why it was actually very creative and deserving of another look. Remember our motto “Question everything” that we repeat all the time? It applies in trade shows, too. Of course, then I’d have to walk another 489 miles to get back to that product I originally didn’t like, and those booths never have the good snacks.
4. The big staff victory dinner the last night of the trip — worth all the work that preceded it.  Let’s just say there’s nothing like a great victory meal with friends.

Another important truth: as engaging as he is on television and in print, Dr. Becker is much more magnetic in person. There’s no other way to say it. You have to meet the man to really understand what I’m talking about, and I love watching people’s reactions when they realize ‘That is Dr. Marty Becker!’ After working with her for just two days, Ericka became a dear friend, and I couldn’t wait for March 2011 to roll around so we could all be together again.

During the rest of the year, my staff role evolved.  Now, I help Gina and Christie “keep the trains running” on the blog. When it came time to strategize for this year’s GPE, the circumstances were very different. I wasn’t the new guy anymore. I knew the drill. I knew how the floor was laid out, what went into the selection process, and how the blogging process needed to work. More importantly, Gina and Dr. Becker are now in the last minute stages of preparing for the Big Bus Tour, which is like figuring out the world’s biggest Rubik’s Cube. In a phone call a week or two ago about something else entirely, Gina said in an offhand way “Oh yeah, I want you to run the coverage for us. You know what you’re doing. It’ll be fine.”

My response to Gina, no matter what she’s ever asked, has always been “Ok, I’m on it.” Here was the latest challenge. Coordinating the coverage and selection process would have been terrifying if it hadn’t involved such a tremendous team. For me, this year involved at least double the work as last year, but it’s also been double the fun. The proudest moment for me was yesterday afternoon in the press room when, after our roundtable meeting (Dr. Becker, Gina, Ericka and myself), I knew we had our list and our winner. It was a team effort, and there’s no team better than Team Becker. The products are outstanding, and although there were a few choices that required some discussion, in a way they almost picked themselves.

My biggest regret? I have to wait another whole year to do it again.

Photo credit: Team Becker at Petmate’s GPE booth

Before I get to the winners, though, I want to tell you how we went about choosing them.

The first day of the show, we break up and spread out, each of us with no expectations except to cover the 12 football fields worth of booth space in a few hours and look at every single booth at least once. This year, we sent four reporters out: Ericka Basile, who’s our product-review coordinator; David Greene, our associate editor and “field commander” for the show; and of course me and my wife, Teresa. Gina was supposed to be one of the reporters Wednesday, but she got stranded back at the hotel launching the website for our 30-city book tour next month.

Each of us ended the day with a list of about 20 or so products we wanted in consideration, and then David put all those in a spreadsheet for review Thursday morning. We winnowed down the list to about 30 or so, and we all went out to review the products again while Gina went out to see the semi-finalists for the first time. We met again at lunch and hashed out the finalists, then the winner. Ericka and the PR team from Global Pet then pulled the products for the announcement, which I just made.

Now, finally, it’s time to reveal “Becker’s Best” consensus winners.

Here’s our picks starting with my Best in Show:

Hagen Catit  Senses Line Food Maze ($24): Enrichment! As more and more of our cats live in the house for their own protection and the protection of potential prey (and to avoid conflicts with neighbors) too many of them are just plain bored. And overweight, besides. The need for environmental enrichment is very strong for cats, and we saw a lot of new products in this area, a few of which will be the topic of reviews in the future. Our team loved the Food Maze from Hagen, though, making it an almost unanimous choice for my Best in Show from all our final selections. It just stood out on so many levels, from design to price. There are several different modules to the Food Maze to add as you want, and cats will love having to hunt a little harder for their food. The team also thought watching the cats enjoy themselves would be entertaining for the kids in the family.

DogTek  Eyenimal video camera ($129): OK, I admit it, I love high-tech stuff. The Eyenimal is a small video camera, small enough to fit on even a cat’s collar. With 8 MB of storage and a couple hours of battery life, you can really get a lot of fun video from your pet’s point of view. Gina already nabbed a review product for the book tour, intended to record video from the collar of her dog McKenzie, who’ll be our official tour dog. So yes, we like this product so much we’ll be using it next month!

SmartyKat – Brush-Up $15. Keeping cats happy and entertained is always a challenge, right? The Brush-Up impressed all of us with its reasonable price and its tower of ”grabby” fingers for the cat to rub her body against. Creative, simple and inexpensive. Great combination!

Doggone Smart Pet Products – collars, beds, jackets, etc  $12-300. Products that make you say “Wow, I want that in my home!” is how our team described Doggone Smart Pet Products. Dog collars, pet beds and a whole variety of items that are all impregnated with nanotechnology that not only repels liquids, dirt and oils, but it’s bariostatic. That’s a fancy word for saying it keeps the bacteria that makes a dog bed stink from sticking to the bed. Again, I love technology!

Premier – Rip n Tug $12.99. I always admire Premier’s dedication to making toys that are durable as well as good looking. The Rip n Tug is coming to the market soon, and when it does, your dog will line up to play with it. It combines a rope with a tough toy that has a treat compartment buried inside. It combines the best of the rope pull toys with a treat dispenser. Best of all, if you have two dogs, they can both play with it!

Petmate – Clean Response Swivel Bin & Rake - $23.99. Everybody liked how easy this doggie waste cleanup tool was to use. In fact, Teresa wants to try this at Almost Heaven Ranch! It works like a dustpan and rake, with a tall handle (three feet in height). There is a large capacity waste container, and you use your own plastic grocery bags you might otherwise be throwing away.  Best of all, there’s an ingenious swivel design built in, so the waste stays in the bin while you’re transporting it to the trash can (picture at right showing me demonstrating. I think I might be doing this a lot at home).

Pet Projekt Bloat Blocker $10-15. We all liked the simplicity and elegant design of the Bloat Blocker. It’s an effective tool to keep dogs from gulping down their food and water too fast.  A dishwasher-safe obstacle suction cups to the food or water bowl, and slows down your dog’s intake speed. More gradual eating and drinking, less chance of air intake, less bloat! This can be removed from a bowl easily, and inserted into another one in seconds. Why didn’t I think of that?

Jordan Animal Solutions – Sunny Cat Seat Bed $19.99 (reviewed by our own Ingrid King on her consciouscat blog). Another simple, creative idea – give your cat a bed that lets her be not just near the window, but right next to it! It’s very simple – a perch that attaches with suction cups to a clean window surface. The beds are very strong, and won’t collapse, even when two cats are trying to wrestle on the bed! We all thought the price was right, too. For less than twenty dollars, your cat can have her favorite spot in the whole house.

P.L.A.Y – Pet beds $95-105. These are just flat out beautifully made pet beds that are all made from recycled materials. David Collins’ playful, attractive designs will fit seamlessly in any house or back yard, and with any decor. The quality and attention to detail in their fabrics blew us all away.

Zoo Med  Aquatic Turtle Banquet Block ($5): Ericka is always the advocate for items aimed at species I just don’t see much of, like turtles. Last year she found a turtle dock, and this year she liked this inexpensive product, which helps these pets get the nutrients they need.

Before the “Becker’s Best” choices were revealed, I was honored to announce the winners of Global Pet Expo’s New Product Showcase Awards. They’re under the jump, below!

Global Pet Expo’s New Product Showcase Awards were:

Aquatics
Jellyfish Art, LLC – Desktop Jellyfish Tank

Bird
Fetch-It Pets, Inc – Polly Wanna Pinata The New Generation

Boutique
Doggles – Plush Bottle Toys

Cat
Ware Manufacturing – Earthly Elements II

Dog
JW Pet Company, Inc. – Pet Dog Toys

Natural Pet
Head of the Pack - Freezy Pups

Reptile
United Pet Group Blacksburg - TetraFauna Viquarium

Small Animal
Ware Manufacturing - Bamboo Bio Bowls and Eco-friendly Feeders

Point of Purchase
Planet Dog – The Orbee-Tuff Counter Top Display

Photo credit: Hagen Cat Maze, hagen.com. Dr. Marty Becker with the Petmate Clean Response Swivel Bin, Ericka Basile.

Well, first, let me back up and describe where I am writing. I’m here in Orlando at Global Pet Expo, in one of the world’s largest convention centers, and it’s packed, with nowhere in the hall more crowded then where I am right now. I am near Cesar Millan. Buyers, TV crews, journalists, manufacturers reps and just plain fans, they’re all going gaga over Cesar as he debuts a line of products focused on dog-grooming, but more on that in a second.

While I am more a fan of Victoria Stilwell in the celebrity-dog-trainer genre, I try to look for the good in all people. And agree with Millan that educating ourselves, our children, and (for pet-writers) other pet-owners is the biggest responsibility we have in caring for our dogs.

Bob Aniello, the president and executive director of Cesar Millan Inc, spent a lot of time with me reviewing the Millan Foundation‘s goals. From this new product line Cesar debuted at Global Pet Expo, 10 percent of the sales go to the foundation. Through this charitable foundation, he has partnered with Yale University to work with 1,600 elementary schools to educate children on pet ownership and responsibilities. This initiative not only gives education tools to students, but it also guides teachers on the best ways to teach empathy and education related to dogs.

He is promoting awareness about dogs. I like that. I liked the product line as well. Very much.

If you are a frequent reader of this blog, you know I am a design lover, and the grooming products Millan delivered in this debut scored high for me in shape and colors. The fragrances are pleasant;  the grooming tools look sturdy and ergonomic. I have not had a chance to review them on a dog nor test or hold a brush, but upon viewing they look very nice.

But … what was the highlight of the interview for me? When I met Junior, one of Cesar’s dogs. What a gorgeous Pit Bull. and he was very friendly, basically licking the make-up off my face in three seconds. It was worth it. In the middle of a enormous trade show, interviewing people, meeting manufacturer reps… the bottom line is I do all this because I love dogs.

Having a few minutes of private “dog-time” was appreciated and gave me renewed energy. It is really all about the pets and what drives us all to do what we think is right by them.

P.S. Why was the Subaru there? They are a sponsor of Millan’s TV series. What can I say? Millan has an amazing marketing team.

Yesterday, one booth, staffed by kids (ok, they’re in their twenties, but I’m old, so that qualifies as kids to me), blew me away. The company is DuraDoggie, and although they make some terrific toys for dogs, let’s be honest. The number of dog toys in the market can be counted by the thousands. What sets DuraDoggie apart, apart from their quality, is these twenty-somethings are changing the world.

Let me backtrack. I met Raad Mobrem, DuraDoggie’s co-founder and President. He and two friends met while taking a course in entrepreneurship at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Their project was to create a fake product for a fake company. It seems Raad misunderstood the concept of fake. By the end of the course, the trio had fun, well-made products they could hold in their hands. They created something genuine, and they weren’t stopping when the school year ended. They decided to stay on the ride and make it a reality. What’s more, they knew that if the company was going to work they way they envisioned, ”success” would mean their responsibility wasn’t just to themselves to earn a profit, or their customers to make great products. They wanted to do well by doing good. Twenty percent of the profits from the company’s sales go to a non-profit benefit organization. But wait, there’s more. DuraDoggie leaves it to the customer to decide which cause should benefit. You get to “Chews Your Cause.” Clever motto, I thought.

The product on display in the booth at Global Pet was the Beba Toy. It’s a fun, colorful treat dispenser and squeaker in one. By colorful, I mean four colors.

• Blue benefits animals, specifically supporting no kill shelters
• Pink benefits breast cancer research, namely Susan G. Komen for the Cure
• Green benefits the planet, targetting land conservation and the planting of more trees.
• Orange benefits diabetes research, a cause close to Raad’s heart due to family connections.

Four different causes. You decide what color you want for your dog (or all four!), and one dollar out of every five will go directly to that cause. Name another pet product company that does that. Name another pet product company that gives you hope for the future of society. Name another company that makes you feel good about being their customer.

DuraDoggie is a company I’m shamelessly rooting for. I want them to be a model for everyone else here in Orlando, and for similarly aspiring entrepreneurs. Give your pet valuable enrichment, and improve your world.  Put another way, these young businesspeople created a solution with a surprise. Helping others works for all.

And when I say “most,” I’m not exaggerating. At the media conference here in Orlando at Global Pet Expo, Bob Vetere (pictured at right), president of the American Pet Products Association revealed the trade group’s annual snapshot of the pet-care industry, as well as the executive summary of the of the association special two-year in-depth overview of who has pets, what kind, what they spend on them and why.

How many of us are there? Pet-ownership is at all all-time high — up 2.1 percent since the last survey two years ago, to 72.9 million households — and in those households, the number and variety of pets has also increased. Not surprising, that means the amount of money spent on those companion animals has barely hiccuped during the recession, and is predicted to top $50 billion this year. For perspective, the amount of money spent on pets tops that spend on jewelry, candy and hardware, combined, and overall is the eighth largest retail sector.

“I’m constantly amazed at the resilience of this industry,” said Vetere in releasing the APPA figures. “Not only did we weather the recession very well, but we’re poised to take advantage of the recovery.”

While Vetere is speaking of the industry as a whole, it’s clear from any time spent on the trade floor that not only have consumers been spending relatively freely on pets, but corporations have, too. The rate of acquisitions of small companies and hot product lines by big international players has been staggering, and these companies are now squaring off like the superpowers they are to start competing tooth and claw against each other, both within the retail sector and in the larger pet-care section. For example, the APPA press conference was followed by the product release of Fiproguard Plus, the Sergeant’s Pet Care product that the company says has the same active ingredients as Frontline Plus, but that will be sold directly to the consumer through retail outlets, not veterinarians.

The Sergeant’s products will be competitively priced, of course, and that is the other underlying theme of this conference. While you can still spot products of pricey bling, they’re relatively rare compared to years past, and even the “silly stuff” is designed to as appealing on price as it is in cute.

Aggressive pricing is what everyone’s betting will lead the industry to another record-breaking year, as recession-battered consumers ease their way out to the purchase of non-essentials with small buys that make them as happy as their pets do.

“Their pets were a rock after a horrible day,” notes Vetere. “And now, people are wanting to reward their pets.”

And that’s what this industry is counting on.

Here’s some perspective: Dr. Becker just told me it’s approximately the size of a dozen Costco warehouses, although at least here you’re not required to cart around a 100-gallon bucket of laundry detergent and 50 pounds of steak tips yourself. The picture at right is from one extreme end (actually a corner) of the hall, looking across the vast expanse. What you see in front of you is what’s called the New Product Showcase. It’s a quick couple hours — and for me the first couple hours I was in the hall this morning after our breakfast meeting – where I could take a gander at each item from vendors participating in this showcase. Each product has a little card in front of it telling you which booth has that product, usually located in a section of the hall approximately four states away from where you’re standing right then. Another note about the picture: In spite of it being the best view available, there’s no way to explain how little of floor you can actually see from here.

I was here last year, and so I knew what to expect. However, I now believe Global Pet Expo is like childbirth:  Your brain conveniently fogs out the details until it happens again. Not that I have firsthand child birth experience;  I’m just using an analogy here.  It’s three in the afternoon of the first day, and already I need my own souped up, turbo-charged Segway to get around tomorrow and Friday. I’ll be expensing that, so I don’t think it’ll be a problem, do you?

Seriously, this show is a big deal for a reason. It’s the Super Bowl of pet product trade shows. Being here with the Pet Connection team is more fun than I care to admit, and it’s also a kind of an honor for me to be asked to cover it. That’s important to keep in mind, because did I mention how megamonstrous the show floor is?

Before we get into reviews of actual items, I want to give you a few impressions.

• New is the new black. Even if it’s just new colors and shapes, even the big boys are trying hard not to recycle the same stuff we’ve seen in every pet store from here to Istanbul. That said, there are definitely some new products and ideas. A couple of them blew me away. I’ll get into that tomorrow.
• Please feed the visitors.  Want to make your passing press and buyers happy? Have a bowl of candy, peanuts, nachos, or (better yet) a free lunch available. Even if your products aren’t dramatically different, people will hang around. Good marketing.
• Technology r us. Yes, I’m a tech guy, but even if I weren’t, I’d still be blown away by certain products. Again, stay tuned for details. I know, I’m such a tease. Hey, it’s a three-day show. I need you to come back and read our continuing coverage…
• Let’s be green and socially aware. Another trend that’s increased since last year is a dawning realization that we owe a little kindness to the environment and the world around us. Being green is becoming profitable.
• Around every corner, there are surprises, inventive solutions, and, I hope, by the end we’ll have found a few secret little gems.
• Funny metal hats with doodads and antennae never go out of style. Yes, ladies and germs, that man who just landed from Neptune is our own Dr. Tony Johnson, pictured at right. We’ll be talking about him tomorrow, I promise. Oh yes, we’ll be talking about him. Meeting him in person was a treat.  Seeing him with his headgear is not so surprising.
• In the meals to come this week, I firmly believe Dr. Becker is bound and determined to make liquid shoot from my nose at least once. I keep forgetting how genuinely funny the man is. Tonight, I’m having drinks with Dr. Becker and Dr. Tony. Fear isn’t even the word for it.

I love my job. I truly do. You’ll be hearing more details from us in the days to come. For now, though, I have lists of products to assemble for further research tomorrow. Stay tuned.

Photo credits: Show floor, Ericka. Our man from the distant reaches of Neptune, David