The American Veterinary Medical Association (AMVA) is updating its 2012 U.S. Pet Ownership and Demographics Handbook (avma.org/petdemo). The handbook costs $315 dollars and is one of the most detailed analyses of the nature of pet ownership and expenditures in America. The handbook reports that 36.5 per cent of households in America owned at last one dog at the end of 2011. Many households had more than one dog, and more than one dog or cat.

One figure stood out for me: In 2011 Americans spent $28 billion on veterinary expenditures for pets, a number significantly higher than the gross national product of many nations, and a time when Americans were seeing budgets slashed for teachers, school programs, libraries and social services. This number has exploded in recent years, as corporate equipment and pharmaceutical companies have entered the animal health care business.

This is an astounding figure and it reflects a number of things. Medical technology is expensive, for people and for pets. More dogs and cats are being medicated for more things, including emotional issues like depression and anxiety. Corporations have taken over the veterinary health care business.  A growing part of the animal culture has also embraced the absolutist idea that animals should not die for any reason other than natural deaths, just as the human medical process is keeping Americans alive at any cost by any means. No-kill shelters are embraced all over the country, as if they are a humane or practical idea for animals. Distracted and impulsive Americans increasingly prefer to medicate pets with behavioral problems rather than choose them thoughtfully or train them well.

It has always seemed disturbing to me that the human health care system would migrate to veterinary care, yet that seems to be happening, a perhaps inevitable outcome in the Corporate Nation. Law schools are also training law students to explore veterinary lawsuits, another trend that will send veterinary costs – malpractice insurance and protective diagnoses and medications – shooting up, as they have with people health care.

It might seem like good new for dogs that people are spending billions of dollars on their health care, but I don’t think it is good news for dogs. People will spend almost anything to make themselves feel good, even when it isn’t always good for animals. Ultimately, this will lead people to avoid adopting or buying animals or treating their ailments. It is difficult to even see a vet now for less than a couple of hundred dollars in fees, medications, procedures. I took our three dogs in to see a vet last year for a routine physical examination and the bill was close to $800. And they were all healthy.  This $28 billion demographic estimate does not include food, grooming, boarding,  toys and dog beds.

There is to me the question of perspective as well. As dog lovers become obsessive about food medications and procedures to prolong the life the the pet, the very idea of what a pet is and what it means to and how it relates to the rest of our society is undergoing radical change, but little rational discussion. Humans are not encouraged to die the way they wish, and that is an important issue for me. I guess for my dogs as well.