Careers
Tracking and customizing for better health
To enhance the lives of their pets as they do their own, pet owners again turn to technology – 56 percent of pet owners already own tech just for their pets1. This trend is bound to become more dynamic. Pet owners use wearables and apps for identification and tracking, to monitor their pet’s behavior (this goes as far as sensors in a cat’s litter box), as well as to evaluate their level of fitness through apps.
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Another trend to keep pets healthy is a high quality diet: “A double digit percentage of pet owners today say that they give their pet better food than they themselves eat1!” exclaims Oscar. This goes especially for customized food to further improve health benefits. Willingness among pet owners to invest money in their pets’ medical and preventive care has also increased noticeably.
Lifelong care
“Today, there is a stronger focus on lifelong care for pets: on promoting their health and wellbeing as well as regular examination and the use of parasiticides,” says Saskia Kley, Global Head of Therapeutic Pet Vet at Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health. As a result, an increased number of cats and dogs reach older ages. This also increases the development of chronic diseases previously primarily important in human health. Examples are obesity, diabetes, and cancer.
The management of chronic diseases and changes of lifestyle therefore become more and more important. “The focus at this stage may not necessarily be on curing the disease, but on the pets’ well-being and quality of life. Pets need not suffer as they age, especially when their owners and vets work together to manage their health carefully,” shares Saskia.
In all these different trends, there is one common theme: Pets are becoming healthier, their well-being more important, and they are now center stage in many families. The future for pets is bright!
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The speed of both the development and application of digital technologies in animal health is increasing exponentially.
New digital tools, services and insights are continually uncovering new potential to enhance the key pillars of defending and maintaining good animal health
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The Technologies
Predictive, monitoring and diagnostics technologies are distinct categories of technology that also interact as a tripartite ecosystem to uphold not only the health of individual animals but herd health, household health, pet health and, ultimately, public health.
Modern data insights and analytics provide these technologies with the unique ability to generate cumulative knowledge to enable better health outcomes.
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