Looks like many Filipinos are interested to adopt a pet during this COVID-19 pandemic.
A data aggregator reported that the Philippines has the highest number of pet searches on Google among Southeast Asian countries.
iPrice Group said that six countries in the region “had a notable increase in Google for pets (either for adoption or for sale).”
Based on data from the Google Keyword Planner, the searches for pets in the region from January to September 2021 have logged a total of roughly 12.9 million.
It increased 88% from the same period in 2019, the group said.
It said that the pet searchers were 6.8 million in 2019, 11.3 million in 2020 and 12.9 million in 2021.
“Filipinos have the highest overall searches for pets, reaching almost 7 million Google searches by September 2021, nearly 4x [times] Vietnam’s,” the group noted in a release.
Vietnam comes in second, with its pet searches logging at 1.9 million.
Impressions on iPrice Philippines’ pet supplies also rose by 145%, from more than 400,000 on the previous year to more than a million this year.
This confirmed a rise in pet adoptions and sales.
As to the type of pet preferred, the group found out that Filipinos preferred to have a dog “over 5x [five times]” instead of a cat.
“iPrice observed that there are direct correlations between the demand for pets and the gravity of COVID infections/government restrictions in the countries,” it said.
The situation is different at the start of the year.
Last January, it was reported that families have been giving up their pets due to the difficulties in maintaining one as they lose their livelihood or income during the pandemic.
A founder of a non-profit animal rescue organization revealed that more animals have been abandoned and that donations to their shelter have decreased.
“We had more rescues since the lockdown, plus the stray feeding also forced us to do emergency rescues every time we’d see an animal in need,” Pawssion Project founder Malou Perez said before.
A survey, which was conducted during the first lockdown of the United Kingdom, showed that nearly 90% of pet owners said their pets have helped them cope better emotionally during the lockdown.
“Pet owners showed less deterioration in their mental health and feelings of loneliness during the lockdown. This might indicate that pets have a ‘protective’ effect on owners’ mental health,” experts wrote at The Conversation.
“Additional analysis of our results shows that a sense of companionship and connectedness, as well as distraction from feelings of distress, a source of motivation when feeling low, and an animal’s intuitive responses might explain why they’ve largely been beneficial to owners during lockdown,” they added.
ALSO READ: Pets and the pandemic: The impact our animals had on our mental health and wellbeing
