As a life long dog owner, I love following pet trends.  The Mini Trends blog has a nice post on both pet trends and the "Petrepreneurs" who are building businesses related to pets.

The post has a good "state of the pet nation" description:

"Even though more households have a dog than a cat, cats have the upper paw, with 93.6 million feline pets compared with 77.5 million canines. However, there are more pet fish than cats and dogs combined: 171.7 million of them swimming in American aquariums. Rounding out the menagerie are 15 million birds, 13 million horses, and, yesss, over 13 million reptiles."

We spend a lot of money on our pets, almost $50 billion in 2010.  The chart below shows the amazing growth of in the amount we spend on our pets. 

   Pet Trends 
A couple of things hit me about this chart.  First, the pet industry missed the Great Recession.  I can't think of many industries that had close to 20% revenue growth from 2007 to 2010. 

I'm also struck by the total amount we spend on pets and how it continues to grow at a much faster rate than inflation and the overall economy.  This trend will likely continue due to an increasing number of  "pet parents" - mostly aging baby boomers - who dote on their pets. 

For more on pet trends, see Pet Business Trends 2011 by the CEO of pet insurance company Embrace.

(Note to  Mini Trends blog:  I think "Petrepreneurs" sounds like a dinosaur.  How about "Pet-preneurs" with or without the hyphen instead.)