Whenever I have dinner with friends, the conversation always ends up on one of three topics: how hard dating is, the hunt for affordable housing, or an update on everyone’s pets. The last on that list includes cute photos and veterinarian updates. I love hearing about my friends’ cats and dogs. But I also have to admit that I just don’t get it. I don’t have a pet. I never have. (We won’t discuss the ill-fated caterpillar in elementary school.)

I’m in the minority: Over half of American households have pets. Which means that over half of American households have also seen the cost of pet care go up in recent years.  

Helaine Olen is the proud pet parent of a Havanese poodle mix named Barney Rubble. She’s also the managing editor at the American Economic Liberties Project, an antitrust organization, and she says people often aren’t prepared for how expensive it can get. 

Some of it is inflation, Olen says, but veterinary care is a major factor. “The same medical advances that have kept us alive longer and we consider miracles — whether it’s cancer drugs or stem cell therapies or various pharmaceuticals — the same is true for your cats and dogs,” Olen says.

Decades ago, a cat having an MRI was unheard of; now, it’s common. But it’s not just expanded access and improved technology that’s driving prices up. Olen says that who’s behind that healthcare is a factor. “Big corporations and private equity have seen all of this, know that people say they will do anything for their pets, know that they think of their pets as children, and they have rushed into the sector,” she told Vox.

So how did private equity get involved in the lives of our pets? And what happens when the prices keep climbing? We discuss that and more on the latest episode of Explain It to Me, Vox’s weekly call-in podcast. 

Below is an excerpt of my conversation with Olen, edited for length and clarity. You can listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you’d like to submit a question, send an email to askvox@vox.com or call 1-800-618-8545.

What kind of costs are we talking about?

When your pet is young, you’re probably spending several hundred dollars a year for various vaccines, spay and neuter, annual checkups. But the real costs start coming in as they get older and they need maintenance. 

For tooth cleaning, pets need to be put under anesthesia. You’ll spend a minimum of $1,000. That will be even higher if a pet’s tooth has to be removed. 

I’ve spoken to people whose pets have back legs that have collapsed or disc herniations. You can easily be out over $10,000 on a surgery. You can easily spend four figures on a 24-hour overnight. I spoke to somebody who was quoted $3,500 a night for just an observational overnight.

You mentioned that some of this comes down to who owns pet clinics and how that’s changing. Who owns them now?

Traditionally, it was an independent practice. But in the past 10 to 15 years, big corporations and private equity have moved into the space. The largest owner of vets in the United States right now is a group called Mars. And if Mars sounds familiar to you, that’s Mars as in Skittles. 

They own around 2,500 vets under the names of VCA, Banfield, and Blue Pearl. I’d say somewhere between a third and 50 percent of vet clinics are owned by corporations. It was 10 percent or less than 10 percent a little over a decade ago.

What caused this spike and why is a candy company behind it?

As people realize how much can be done to help their pets, the corporations and private equity basically saw what one analyst described as low risk, high reward. I’ve spoken to employees of some of the larger chains who have told me that prices went up routinely every six months or every nine months or once a year. 

In Britain, there was a recent government investigation into all of this by the Competition and Markets Authority, their equivalent of the Federal Trade Commission. They determined that private equity and corporate ownership is responsible for a billion pounds spent on pets over a five-year period that otherwise wouldn’t have been spent, and that people were paying about 16 percent more at vets owned by large corporate outfits versus independent vets.

How are people paying for this if it’s so expensive?

I live in Los Angeles, and I wrote a piece for New York magazine a few months ago about all the people here who are now driving their pets down to Tijuana because it is so much less expensive down there. 

Pet insurance is a very mixed bag. It is extremely expensive in many cases. It goes up at very high rates. My own pet insurance increased by 30 percent from last year to this year. And by the way, my dog Barney Rubble is 2 and a half years old.

Wow. He’s still so young.

He has had no issues that I am aware of that would account for a 30 percent increase. 

The other thing with pet insurance, unlike human health insurance, is there is no preexisting [conditions] clause. I have lost count of the number of people I’ve interviewed over the years who discovered too late that their pet health insurer deemed something a preexisting condition.

What do people do when they get to the point where this costs too much? 

In some cases, they run up debt. Buy now, pay later services are increasingly moving into the veterinary area as well.

In other cases, they surrender the animal. If you talk to people at shelters, they will say that they believe that part of the uptick they’ve gotten in surrendered animals has to do with the increase in costs of veterinary care.

I imagine that just feels like such an impossible choice, like choosing between this money you don’t have and the quality of life for something that you love.

The emotions are huge. This is in part why private equity and corporations have moved in: They know people are going to feel very emotional about their pets and that they’re going to want to do anything they can to keep them alive or keep them healthy or keep them pain-free, and that they will pay almost any price. 

When my last dog was diagnosed with heart disease, I was determined to keep her going for a couple of years. I had her on one medication that cost $300 a month. I was like, “I can’t lose my Katie.”

The tragic thing about pets is they are both better than us — in my opinion — and they live shorter lives. You are going to lose your pet eventually. It’s just the most heartbreaking thing in the world.

Humans have taken the mighty wolf and turned it into the pug, a dog so malformed it struggles to breathe. That, of course, is not our only attempt at playing God with dogs. We crossbreed and create new kinds of dogs all the time, and every once in a while we try to do it on a mass scale.

The BBC recently ran a feature on one such large-scale attempt: scientists in Maine in the 1940s built a huge facility to create a kind of “super-dog,” an experiment that went quite terribly, though thankfully fell short of devolving into an Island of Doctor Monroe-style disaster.

After World War II, according to the BBC, a eugenics-obsessed Rockefeller Foundation director named Alan Gregg put up a ton of money, which today would equal about $9 million, for a 13-year project called the “School For Dogs.” That sounds like a fun Disney-produced family film from 2007, but it was actually a bit more nefarious.

The idea was to subject over 500 puppies of varying species to a series of maze runs and intelligence tests to prove that dog smarts are purely genetic, and then use that to breed some kind of hyper-intelligent super dog.  

More Than 500 Puppies Were Part of a ‘Super-Dog’ Experiment. Here’s What Happened.

The research team, led by John Paul Scott and John Fuller, quickly found a rather funny universal truth: no single dog breed is smarter than any other. Yes, some breeds excel at specific tasks, but overall they found that trying to find one dog breed that was definitively, cumulatively smarter than any other was a waste of time.

The result of all this was a series of experiments that intended to prove eugenics right, but instead proved that eugenics is in itself a stupid pursuit that will not lead to the creation of any kind of master race, dog or otherwise, and it did that by proving that social species thrive on a mix of diverse personalities rather than a single genetically engineered master race.

When the dream of building the genetically superior super dog fell apart, the researchers pivoted to even darker experiments, like raising puppies in total isolation behind eight-foot fences to study attachment styles, which led to discovering that puppies deprived of human contact between four and 12 weeks turned into unmanageable a**holes.

The Rockefeller Foundation pulled its funding when the higher-ups realized they weren’t going to get an ingenious dog from it. The facility was eventually shut down in 1958.

The post Scientists Tried to Breed a ‘Super-Dog.’ It Did Not Go Well. appeared first on VICE.

I watched this video on The Kid Should See This; it's a time-lapse of "jelly bean" isopods eating chunks of sweet potato. I've not heard of jelly bean isopods before, so I looked it up and learned that it's a rare color variety of pill bug that came from a single colony on the Caribbean island of Saint Lucia and comes in a variety of colors: orange, gold, red, yellow, black, striped, and speckled. — Read the rest

The post Jelly bean isopods, rubber ducky isopods, and other pill bugs people keep as pets appeared first on Boing Boing.

Getting older means learning that peace of mind is absolutely, 100% for sale. Or, at least for rent. When I rescued my dog, Ivy, I made a purchase, an investment. But in New York, everything seems to be temporary.

Hypervigilance is the name of the game when you have a reactive dog. It wouldn’t pose as much of a problem if she weren’t such a social being. She loves meeting new people and runs faster than any dog I’ve ever seen. To me, Ivy is a perfect dog. She cuddles next to me when I’m sick and sits on my chest when I cry. But when she sees another dog, everything changes: she snarls, barks loud enough to startle a city block, and lunges with so much force it takes all my strength to hold her back. In just one moment, she is reduced to an aggressive, rescue pit bull and nothing more.

I knew that moving to New York would be a challenge, but I didn’t think about how, with dog parks off the table, there is no off-leash space for her. And I thought, “I wonder if there’s something like Airbnb for yards.” So I googled that phrase, and Sniffspot came up. Their homepage reads, “Rent safe and private dog parks hosted by locals.” One of the locations was a 15-minute walk from my apartment, and for $15 an hour, Ivy could play and run without any risk. It wasn’t a huge space, but it was something.

The whole experience got me thinking about rental culture and privatization. Everything we need (privacy, calm, companionship, etc.) costs extra. The rise of the gig economy is well-documented. We rent bikes, dresses and chargers. We rent side gigs. We rent other people’s time to clean our homes, walk our dogs and run our errands.

Services like rentable yards and InstaCart highlight something deeper: the way city living often turns basic needs into things we have to schedule and pay for. Open space becomes a subscription. Saving time and carving out a little peace of mind for ourselves becomes a luxury.

Take dog yoga and kitten therapy. Our love for animals runs so deep, and our need for their companionship is so strong, we’ll pay for it by the hour. These programs are especially exciting for people who can’t afford to have a pet full-time. Pat Apap, a graduate assistant at NYU, helped plan kitten therapy for grad student appreciation week. “This served as our mental health or wellness style event.” The process was fairly simple. “They were able to provide six kittens for two hours of ‘therapy’ sessions for students, and on top of that, they provided materials going over how to foster and adopt the kittens, so there was the opportunity for our community to support theirs.” Just a couple of phone calls and there they were, kittens for everyone’s enjoyment. Michelle Rifkin Mamaradlo owns The Party Pups in Staten Island. “ I do everything from baby parties to adults, to elderly homes, to employee parties.” Mamaradlo breeds cocker spaniels that live with her when they’re not “working.” Currently, she has eleven “champion trick-trained” dogs that can even ride skateboards if the party gets too dull. She says her business succeeds because of one universal truth: “ people love animals.”

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It’s easy to laugh at pet culture until you realize this market didn’t emerge out of nowhere. The loneliness epidemic, combined with late-stage capitalism, means that anything can be rented. Who said that money can’t buy happiness? The desire for connection is so strong that, in the fallout of remote pandemic work, people are willing to pay just to work next to another person.

Olivia Bannerman, 27, used WeWork twice, but it didn’t stand out to her. She couldn’t find a coffee shop that fit her needs. Poor Wi-Fi, time limits, and a lack of seating are common issues she still encounters. I asked her if she had ever worked at a public library as an alternative, and she said that she “honestly hadn’t even considered that.” The one bonus of a paid work environment? Security. “ I felt like I could get up and go pee and just leave all my stuff . . . I wasn’t worried about theft or any weirdness.” Even businesses are renting offices now. Regus offers companies space “by the hour, day, or as long as you need,” according to its website. Lana Zolzak, an associate of Regus, told Salon that its flexibility is what sets it apart. “Some people don’t want to have to get a long-term place,” she says, and signing a lease doesn’t allow any wiggle room for exigent circumstances. Plus, when companies use Regus for their office, they deal with “bills, cleaning, and everything.” While Regus’ co-workspaces are more common among young people and start-ups, Zolzak says, established businesses are opting for office rental post-COVID. As remote work ends, people need a place to go, she adds.

I’ve seen a lot of talk online about the loss of “third spaces.” These are areas separate from home and work, including parks, libraries, coffee shops, bars, etc. Bannerman lives on the Upper West Side and has noticed a lack of third spaces. Every option has a catch: cafés close early, bars are solely focused on alcohol, and restaurants are expensive. She commented that the hostility of anti-homeless architecture and police presence has even made parks less enjoyable. She said, “I  think it’s important to get out; you have new experiences, you learn new things about yourself. You develop friends, memories and connections. You get closer to your community, which can make your life fuller and richer.”

I think that renting has also soared because it’s been normalized by the unaffordability of ownership. ZipCar is more affordable than a car payment and a 12-month lease is a great option for those of us who can’t afford to buy a home. Having a pet is expensive, but an hour of dog yoga is cheaper. Renting used to be a phase. Now it’s a way of life.

David Adams, the founder of Sniffspot, spoke with me about the company’s immense growth over the last seven years. He said that their rise in popularity has been slow but steady. “It’s been a gradual process of learning that this is something people want.” As of June 2025, Sniffspot has over 30,000 hosts and almost one million guests.

The sites range from the U.S. to Australia, Canada, and even South Africa. Adams saw a gap in the market for his app because “people love making their dogs happy . . . and Sniffspot can be part of that.” He explains that dog parks are important but unpredictable. In addition to dogs like Ivy, who can be aggressive towards others, there are unknown diseases, people, and elements in a public park. When Adams lived in Seattle with his pets, he realized that all these factors disappeared with private land that he noticed was “otherwise not being used.” These days, in cities, especially, he argues, “dogs are bred to run free and that’s just not possible.”

Airbnb has simply changed the way we look at assets. Adams said that even though that company was his primary inspiration, he has also taken measures to ensure that Sniffspot doesn’t follow a similar path towards unfair practices that draw public criticism. For instance, the business model doesn’t lend itself to people buying property just to rent out. And since the sales are hourly, not nightly, hosts don’t make enough to rely on it. It’s a quieter, more sustainable kind of sharing economy, one where empty spaces serve a specific emotional need, not just economic opportunity.

Loving a dog like Ivy is a profound act of emotional labor. It requires you to be patient, calm, gentle and alert. It’s not that I haven’t tried to fix the behavior. After thousands of dollars in training, she’s able to happily interact with people in controlled spaces. But New York City is not controlled. I may have rescued her from a cramped pen in a city pound, but I brought her into a world that wasn’t designed for her. And I’m not sure it was designed for me either. Sniffspot is a great resource to have in my back pocket, but it’s not a catch-all solution. People say Ivy and I act alike and even look alike. I don’t know if that’s true, but we do have one thing in common: we’re both relying on rental culture just to get by.

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