Pets are booming

Many people have had more time to kill during the pandemic, either because they are working from home or they have been put on reduced hours. Going out, travel and attending sporting and cultural events are pastimes that have also been virtually wiped out by Covid-19. So what are people doing in their spare time? They are staying at home for the most part and making this as pleasant an experience as possible by refurbishing their property or rented apartment, investing in their gardens and spending more time with their pets - or even acquiring new ones. Brigitte Lueger-Schuster, Head of the Psychotraumatology Working Group at the University of Vienna, told Austrian business paper The Standard that the quest by people to find things to occupy themselves is behind the increased interest in pets.

As in many other countries, the coronavirus has given pet owning a significant boost in Austria too, even if no data is available regarding this. Pet shelters have reported increased demand for dogs since the outbreak of the pandemic, however. The pet shelter in Hallein alone has rehomed around 200 dogs in the last year, as reported by the Salzburger Nachrichten daily. Cats, tortoises and other pets are also very popular. The pet population was estimated at over 4 mio in 2020, an increase of half a million compared with the pre-Covid period. Singles and couples in particular are reported to have opted to acquire pet companions for the home.
"The biggest increase has been in the number of cats," said Hermann Aigner, head of the Austrian branch of Europe's leading pet store chain Fressnapf, speaking to online portal Oe24. He estimates that over two million cats now reside in Austrian households, nearly 200 000 more than in the previous year. Aigner believes the number of dogs to be 900 000, an increase of 100 000 over the previous year.
A particular beneficiary of the motivation of Austrians to acquire a pet has been the pet product trade. Speak to anyone involved in the sector and they nearly all confirm that sales shot up in 2020, year of the coronavirus. On the high street, the big chains were the clear winners. Fressnapf experienced above-average growth in sales in Austria of 18.2 per cent to 215 mio euros, with sales across Europe rising by 15.2 per cent. Its competitor, Das Futterhaus, saw an increase in sales of 14.1 per cent compared with 2019 to 45.9 mio euros, a result slightly better than the already high increase in sales in Germany, where the…