We didn’t collectively decide to turn pet ownership into a wellness practice. It just sort of happened, the same way therapy-speak did, and oat milk, and 11 p.m. doom-scrolling. Now your dog has anxiety, your cat has depression, and you have a Google search history that would concern a veterinarian.
A new survey of 1,000 U.S. cat and dog owners from MetLife Pet Insurance puts some numbers to all of it. Seventy-seven percent of pet owners say their pet’s mood mirrors their own stress or mental health, which is either a profound testament to the human-animal bond or a telling sign that we’ve found a new way to diagnose ourselves without technically admitting that’s what we’re doing.
Eighty-nine percent of owners believe their pet has experienced anxiety. Nearly half think their pet has dealt with depression. Only 21% feel confident they can tell the difference between emotional distress and a physical illness in their animal. That last number is a bit concerning, especially given that 35% have already mistaken one for the other.
Gen Z Is Asking AI If Their Pets Are Depressed
Gen Z is leading the charge on basically all of this. Sixty-three percent have searched online to decode their pet’s behavior, compared to 29% of boomers. Twenty-nine percent have used AI tools like ChatGPT to assess their pet’s mental health, versus 10% of boomers. Gen Z also reported the highest confidence in reading their pet’s emotions; an interesting combination when you consider they’re also the most likely to have misidentified what they were actually seeing.
To be fair, 42% of people who used online or AI research said it led them to take some kind of action for their pet, so the Googling isn’t entirely performative. But there’s a meaningful gap between “this tool helped me decide to call the vet” and “I have diagnosed my cat with situational depression based on a TikTok.”
Does this actually work? Probably not, but at least your heart is in the right place.
More than half of owners have changed their schedule or lifestyle out of concern for their pet’s emotional well-being. The median spend on calming products or services last year was $50, with more than a third dropping $100 or more. The supplement and anxiety-product industry has clearly figured out that pet owners are a reliable market for the same wellness spending they apply to themselves.
Paying attention to your pet’s behavior is legit, and behavioral changes can absolutely signal something worth paying attention to. The more interesting question is whether we’re getting better at understanding our animals or just found a more socially acceptable outlet for our own anxiety. Probably some of both.
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