Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Pet ownership soared during the pandemic on both sides of the Atlantic \u2014 by November 2021, one in five US households had acquired a cat or a dog since the start of Covid, according to a survey by US charity ASPCA.\u00a0Earlier that year, the UK\u2019s Pet Food Manufacturers\u2019 Association estimated that 3.2mn households in the country had recently acquired a furry friend.For months, if not years, these pets were indulged by work-from-home white-collar staffers. But at the beginning of 2025, that flexible regime has started to crumble, with many companies requiring workers back in the office for at least part of the week.\u00a0$320bnEstimated value of the global pet care marketCoupled with rapid rises in the price of pet food, veterinary bills and insurance, paying for day care or dog-walking services has helped cause the price of keeping animals to balloon in recent years \u2014 it has even produced a phenomenon known as \u201cpet debt\u201d, where workers struggle to support their faithful companions (or equivalents of children, as 82 per cent of US pet owners surveyed by pollster Harris recently described them).Pet care has been a booming business, estimated by Bloomberg to be worth an annual $320bn worldwide and expected to grow to a $500bn market by 2030; it\u2019s also resilient amid economic headwinds, as spending on pets\u00a0grew rather than shrank\u00a0during both the 2001 and 2008 recessions. The tech sector is keen to capitalise, offering to ease some of the effort and cost of pet ownership \u2014 a recent survey found dogwalkers in London can charge up to \u00a325 for a trip \u2014 with a range of new products. Take Necto, a $179 dongle that operates over 5G to monitor temperature and humidity when a pet is left in a car, or Minitailz, the canine answer to a Fitbit, which tracks sleep, heart and lung activity for $99. HomeRunPet launched its Drybo dryer box two years ago: damp dogs can be placed inside the scanner-like box, and blow dried in situ, with models starting at $599.99. UK-based start-up Moggie claims its \u00a3149-hub and tracker system, worn on a collar, can help cat owners uncover 80 per cent of illnesses via behavioural changes rather than symptoms.\u00a0US-based Petlibro produces sleek, automatic feeders and water fountains that can take care of your cat or dog when you don\u2019t have time. The company has rapidly expanded since it debuted the first of its remote feeding devices in late 2020, just as pet adoptions exploded. \u201cWith the pandemic, perhaps we got kinda lucky, as folks \u2014 [who] didn\u2019t know how to take care of pets before they started \u2014 started searching online for help,\u201d says business development head Jeh Lin.Petlibro\u2019s most popular model is the Granary series, which doles out dry food up to six times daily, with options for remote app-based controls and even a camera monitor, costing up to $149.99. Between 70 and 80 per cent of its customers are cat owners, mostly because it\u2019s harder to create food dispensers with capacity enough for the larger meals dogs consume; though one of their drinking fountains is for canines. \u201cCats are very particular about the taste of water. I have a corgi and he\u2019ll drink anything, so quality is not that big of a deal but cleanliness is a bigger issue. We made the Capsule Dog fountain more swirling, so it would take away debris, and doesn\u2019t splash.\u201dThe firm recently launched Petlibro Care, a subscription-based service (with various tiers costing up to $129.99 per year) that uses data from the devices \u2014 how much food was eaten, or water drunk \u2014 to provide feedback to the owner.Ali Ganjavian is behind Moggie, which he likens to a Fitbit for cats. \u201cThe tracker monitors activities like sleeping, playing, and jumping, and the app uses AI to interpret this data into weekly summaries and tailored health tips,\u201d he says. He thinks the product\u2019s appeal is connected to cats\u2019 secretive personalities. (\u201cFascinating, yet enigmatic\u201d, is how he describes them \u2014 compare that to the easy-to-read mug of most dogs). Studies show cats are taken to the vet far less often than dogs, he continues, theorising that it\u2019s their likelihood of masking illness until it\u2019s too severe to conceal as a factor. He points to one user\u2019s pet, which the tracker showed as having decreased play, reduced jumping frequency and prolonged inactivity; a vet visit revealed early stage arthritis. Another cat\u2019s sleep patterns were disrupted, and led to a diagnosis of hyperthyroidism, he claims.Still, like all these entrepreneurs, Ganjavian says there\u2019s more to his device than simple technology. \u201cMoggie is more than a tracker; it\u2019s a tool for fostering deeper bonds between cats and their humans.\u201dWhile it\u2019s not exactly high-tech, Nathan Maleh\u2019s new firm, Pose Pets, takes that kind of anthropomorphising to a new level: it makes sunglasses to help squinting dogs. The New York-based former travel agent was inspired to start the firm by his brother-in-law, who\u2019d rigged up eye protection for his own pooches. Maleh saw commercial potential and bootstrapped the prototypes, working with product developers to devise models that could be worn by dogs in comfort, staying in place without constriction. The $64.99 glasses come in three sizes, which will fit most small through medium dogs \u2014 \u201cTeacup breeds [such as Pomeranians] all the way up to Australian shepherds, give or take,\u201d he says \u2014 although snub-nosed types like bulldogs can\u2019t sport current designs. Pose\u2019s range comprises three styles: there\u2019s the John Lennon-style Jetsetter, the Navigator, which nods to classic Wayfarers, and the King, inspired by the oversized signature glasses of late-era Elvis. People have more vibrant social lives again, so they want to be able to do what they want to do, at the times that are convenient to themAre they just to appeal on Instagram? Maleh insists there\u2019s function at the root of the design. Lenses are UV400 rated, and scratch resistant. \u201cJust like when you or I might walk outside on a sunny day and be uncomfortable without sunglasses, dogs are too \u2014 they squint in the bright sunshine. And when dogs are running around playing in bushes, a twig can scratch their cornea,\u201d he says. There seems to be a contradiction at the heart of the recent pet care boom. Kristen Boesel, an independent analyst from Chicago, says these new products epitomise the increasingly anthropomorphised relationship between pet owner and pet. (In keeping with the 82 per cent of US pet owners who treat them as de facto children, Petlibro\u2019s Lin always refers to \u201cpet parents\u201d rather than \u201cowners\u201d.)\u00a0\u201cI predict an increased need for products and services that will help make pet parenting more intensive \u2014 allowing owners to monitor and cater to their pets\u2019 health or perceived emotional needs,\u201d says Boesel.But the return to pre-pandemic norms \u2014 and not just with regards to working practices \u2014 pulls pet owners in a different direction, creating an unmet need. \u201cPeople have more vibrant social lives again, so they want to be able to do what they want to do, at the times that are convenient to them,\u201d Boesel says. \u201cWe are moulding pets to be what is convenient for us in our lifestyle. We want a dog but we also want to stay out late.\u201d\u00a0So how far do these products genuinely allow us to do both?St Albans-based clinical animal behaviourist Lisa Sinnott isn\u2019t convinced. Water fountains, she says, are harmless and pet health tracking can be helpful. The rest of the gizmos give her pause. \u201cThe marketing around the feeder that holds fresh food for three days while you\u2019re on vacation, though, that\u2019s my problem. It\u2019s completely misleading that pets will be OK because they have food. They need companionship \u2014 a cat sitter comes into your house to feed them and has playtime, too.\u201d\u00a0Sinnott raises concerns about malfunctioning, since remote feeding devices can fail, leaving your pet starving until you return (Lin counters that WiFi enabled devices should be able to send alerts the moment there are issues, though not all Petlibro\u2019s products are connected to the internet).\u00a0What about the sunglasses? \u201cDo dogs like things on their face? No. And if it\u2019s a concern they\u2019re going to hurt themselves by going into the hedges, I\u2019d just avoid the hedges.\u201d Mostly, though, Sinnott echoes analyst Boesel\u2019s concerns about why these devices exist at all. For all the fussy terminology around pet parenting, there\u2019s a very human rationale behind these products.\u00a0\u201cTech can be helpful if it\u2019s used the right way, but we\u2019re almost taking away one problem to add a new one. Yes, they\u2019re sorting out the feeding regime, but you\u2019re taking away companionship. All of these things are designed for us, not with the pet in mind.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Pet ownership soared during the pandemic on both sides of the Atlantic \u2014 by November 2021, one in five US households had acquired a cat or a dog since the start of Covid, according to a survey by US charity ASPCA.\u00a0Earlier that year, the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-151379","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-tech"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151379"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151379\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}