Kinship Survey Reveals What People Do With Their Pets Over the Holidays

Having people over for a holiday celebration can be stressful enough, between remembering which cousin is still vegan and trying to find ten plates that match — and as much as your friends and family might love your pet, adding them to the mix can make things even more complicated.

How do you keep your pup from jumping on guests? What if your cat gets their paws on some toxic scraps? On the other hand, hiring a sitter requires a whole lot of planning, too. How do you know who you can trust? How much is all this going to cost you?

It seems like everyone has a different opinion on what’s best for their pets during the busy holiday season, but a new survey by Kinship asked pet parents how they’re planning to spend their holidays and revealed some surprising findings.

Hosting holiday festivities

When it comes to willingness to host festivities, pet parents are exactly evenly split; half plan to host friends and family, and half don’t. Young people are leading the pack in hospitality — of those planning to have guests over, 62% are Gen Z. Gen X are next most likely to host (53%), followed by boomers (52%). Millennials are least likely (44%).

Kinship found that pets react to all that holiday commotion in very different ways. Nearly a quarter of pet parents (23%) say their dog or cat loves the extra attention. Unsurprisingly, 17% claim that their pet seeks food from guests. And having a pet in the mix isn’t always easy; 16% say their pet gets overly excited or disruptive, and 15% say they jump on people. Only 10% of respondents described their pet as friendly and curious, but calm.

Caring for pets during the holidays

Whether they’re hosting or traveling for a gathering, pet parents have to consider how to best care for their pets during the holidays. Surprisingly, 75% of pet parents will not be using a pet sitter or pet boarder, while 9% say they are leaving their pet with a friend or family member. Compared to every other generation, more Gen Z pet parents are planning to leave their pet with a friend or family member (15%). Men are also more likely to leave their pet with a friend or family member (11%).

Some of the aspects of planning for our pets’ welfare are more challenging than others. The biggest struggle? Keeping pets calm during gatherings — 29% of pet parents name this as the hardest part of the holiday season. Balancing social plans and pet care is also highly ranked (24%), followed by managing travel logistics (17%), finding affordable care options (10%) and avoiding holiday food hazards (9%).

Not all age groups agree on what’s most difficult. Over half of millennials (53%) rank managing travel logistics as the hardest part of the holiday season. On the other hand, 40% of Gen X-ers say the trickiest thing is finding affordable care options.

Methodology

To explore holiday travel with pets, we surveyed 1,000 pet owners. This sample size provides a 95% confidence level with a margin of error of 3%. Because this exploratory research relied on self-reported data, respondents may have biases, and discrepancies may exist between their answers and their actual experiences.

Fair use statement

We invite you to explore and share our findings! All we ask is that you link back to this study to ensure proper attribution to our researchers.