Pet ownership, veterinary use, and beliefs regarding veterinary care were elicited through the use of a nationally representative survey of 997 U.S. residents. Fifty-one percent of respondents have or had a dog in the past five years and 37% have or had a cat in the past five years. Over ninety percent of cat and dog owners had visited a veterinarian at any time, but only about 40% visited a veterinarian annually. With the rise of options in veterinary medicine, including low-cost options for vaccines and spay/neuter, further study and analysis of pet-owners use of veterinary care is warranted. Fifty-four percent of dog owners and 40% of cat owners who went to a low-cost spay/neuter clinic also went to a veterinarian/clinic/practice. This finding suggests that pet-owners who use low-cost options do so in a manner that supplements rather than replaces traditional veterinary care. Logit models were employed to evaluate the relationship between dog and cat owner demographics and visiting a veterinarian. The probability of visiting a veterinarian increased with age and income for dog owners.

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U.S. residents’ perceptions of the impact of prominent animal welfare and veterinary care organizations on pet animal well-being and health care may not be linked to the organization’s stated mission and effectiveness in advancing it, but to the level of recognition people have for the groups. An online survey of 1000 U.S. residents was used to understand the perceived impact of organizations with self-stated dedication to pet animal well-being. Using a Likert-scale, respondents ranked 13 prominent organizations as having a low to high impact on pet animal well-being and health care. The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) had the highest perceived average impact, while People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) had the lowest. A best–worst scaling (BWS) choice experiment was conducted with 7 of the initial 13 organizations to elicit relative rankings by forcing tradeoffs by respondents. Consistent with the Likert-scale results, the ASPCA was ranked as the most impactful organization. The ASPCA’s perceived impact on pet animal well-being and health care may be linked to their high level of recognition among respondents, as this was the organization that respondents most frequently reported having seen/heard stories related to animal well-being and health care.

Aged-beef has historically been available in high-end establishments, but investigation into consumer preferences for aging is increasingly important as it has become more readily available. Consumer perceptions of and willingness-to-pay (WTP) for aged-beef under two methods dry-aging and wet-aging, were studied in a representative sample of n = 1,275 U.S. residents alongside USDA quality grades. In general, U.S. residents are not knowledgeable regarding aged-beef but have a positive direct-stated perception of the practice. Respondents self-reported familiarity with USDA grades Prime and Choice and perceived them as superior beef attributes. Half of respondents were randomly assigned to receive a low information treatment about beef aging, while the other half saw a high information treatment with additional information about beef aging. A likelihood ratio test indicated that the two information groups could not be pooled for analysis, and a two-class latent class model was estimated for both the low information and high information treatments. Respondents in class 1, in both information treatments, had stronger preferences for beef and were more receptive of beef aging, with the exception of wet-aged beef in the low information treatment, which they were not willing to pay a premium for. The second latent class, which is probabilistically smaller, had negative WTP estimates for both aging methods under both information treatments provided. Additional information regarding beef aging was found to have a positive impact on mean WTP for dry-aged beef in latent class 2. All models revealed positive mean WTP point estimates which ordinally behaved as expected with USDA Prime commanding the highest premium and Select the least.

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