On 1 September, Jo Malone London launched its first dog product: an Orange & Cedarwood shampoo, £18 for 285ml.
Days later, Rituals opened what it calls a dog spa: seven new products, two gift sets, a collar and a water bottle.
And they are not first. Kiehl's has a Cuddly-Coat range, Aesop has Animal. Dolce & Gabbana sells a dog fragrance at around $100. Louis Vuitton will sell you a dog trunk. DOG by Dr Lisa can be found in Harrods, while Lil Luv Dog just landed in Violet Grey - a prestige beauty retailer, not a pet shop.
The category is moving from ‘pet shop’ into the beauty aisle, and - at beauty margins.
First, the demographic story - which is real, and slightly not what we think
The substitution read is tempting: people aren't having babies, so they are buying dogs, so brands follow the dogs.
The numbers do not exactly refuse it. EU fertility hit its lowest recorded level in 2024 - 1.34 live births per woman, 3.55 million babies, down 3.3% YOY. Spain, where I live, came in at 1.10, second-lowest in the union.
Meanwhile, same Spain published its first official pet census this summer. As of 2025 there are 15.2 million registered animals, up 14% since 2021. Dogs are 7.56 million of them, cats 5.62 million.
Compare this to the kids under 18 population: it is about 8.5 million in Spain.
But I'd push back on the "pet instead of a baby" take here. I see it more of a household structure. More people living alone, more people living alone at 65+, more small households, later first births. A one-person household is a pet household at a much higher rate.
The birth rate and the dog count are both downstream of the same thing.
Pets didn't replace children so much as both got rearranged by how we live now.
The pet-care market
…is projected at $165bn in the US alone this year, up roughly 74% since 2018. Similar numbers across the EU.
That growth is funded household by household, and the household numbers look like this:
To be fair, part of the spread is regulation, not the dog.
Germany charges a municipal dog tax - a national average of about €96 a year, and €600–900 for a listed breed in some large cities. Some federal states also require third-party liability insurance.
Spain has no dog tax, but the 2023 animal welfare law made liability cover obligatory for all dogs regardless of breed.
The UK has neither tax nor mandatory insurance, but charges 20% VAT on veterinary services.
In the US there is no national scheme at all.
The perception gap
But the gap that matters is not between countries. It is between the estimate and the bill.
Synchrony's 2025 study of nearly 5,000 US owners found dog owners expect to spend about $8,000 over a pet's life.
But the reality, as we see, is $20,000–$55,000.
That is a huge perception gap.
And there is this number below that I really want on the record.
Women make roughly 80% of pet purchase decisions, despite men and women owning pets at broadly similar rates. Survey work consistently puts women at 54–60% of pet owners.
The £18 shampoo, the grooming upgrade, the insurance policy or the absence of one, the emergency put on a card - that spending decision is, four times out of five, a woman's.
That very woman carrying an 11.1% EU pay gap and a 22% gender pension gap.
Five things to do about it
1. Model the whole life, the way you would for a child. Nobody has a baby without someone producing a number — childcare, schooling, the years it runs for.
Almost nobody does it for a dog, which is how US owners arrive at an €7,400 estimate for a €20,000–55,000 commitment. Annual run-rate × 12 to 15 years, plus one €2,000 - 4,000 ‘what if something happens’ scenario, plus the end-of-life line most people never write down: €150–400 for euthanasia and cremation (these are the numbers for Spain, check your local ones).
2. You do not have to own one to have one. Co-ownership with a friend or family member, pet-sharing arrangements, fostering for a shelter, house-sitting or dog-walking - paid or not - all deliver the animal without the fifteen-year committment. This matters more than it sounds in a rental market: in Madrid, for instance, only one in eight listings accepts pets. The constraint is real whether or not you budget for it.
3. Make the insurance decision in year one. As for any health insurance, for the dogs premiums climb steeply with age and pre-existing conditions are excluded, so this is a decision with a closing window. If you decide against it, self-insure properly: create a named sinking fund with a standing monthly transfer.
4. If there is a partner, split it explicitly - at the start. With four out of five purchasing decisions being a woman's it is very easy to absorb the majority of cost of the pet you own as a couple. Spain already treats this as a real financial question: since January 2022, article 94 bis of the Civil Code lets a judge assign a pet's care and apportion its costs between both parties, regardless of whose name is on the microchip. Same if a couple divorces.
5. Remember that breed is the single biggest lever. It moves food, grooming, insurance and vet costs at once. Flat-faced breeds - the French bulldog is now among the most popular dogs in both the US and Spain - carry structurally higher premiums and a higher probability of the surgeries that produce the four-figure bills.