I was gabbing recently with a friend who is obsessed with her dog. Somehow, we got on the topic of what information is most interesting to pet owners. Our information conclusion was that people love to talk about what they should feed their pet and don’t focus on how much they feed their pet, i.e. obesity. I decided to collect some data on what readers of the AMC blog read most frequently to answer that question. That information is the subject of this blogpost.

What AMC’s Most Popular Blogposts Tell Us About Pet Owners

First, we looked at the most viewed blogposts of the 12 months prior to September 12, 2024. Nearly all the posts at the top of the list have a title that a pet owner might search in Google. For example, the number two blogpost, with 30,000 views, asks “Why is my cat’s breathing noisy?” While the number one blogpost, with 40,000 views, is not a question—“Elevated liver enzymes in dogs and cats”—but it could easily be phrased as a question to satisfy an internet search. Other blogposts in the top ten describe common problems of dogs and cats, such as fatty tumors, hot spots and kidney disease in cats. All of these blogposts have over 10,000 views. My conclusion from the analysis of this data is that pet owners have a lot of questions about common medical conditions of dogs and cats.

Where Do Food and Nutrition Blogposts Rank?

I selected a few blogposts on food, feeding and nutrition to analyze the frequency pet owners are asking questions about this topic. I was surprised these blogposts were two orders of magnitude less popular than the top ten blogposts. All of the food and nutrition blogposts had less than 500 clicks, except for one on home cooked and raw food diets with roughly 1,000 clicks. I believe I am not alone in being surprised since discussing a pets’ food and nutrition is a daily occurrence in veterinarians’ offices.

Unlike the top ten blogpost list, none of these food and nutrition blogposts had a title that was a question. Possibly, a title phrased as a question might have made them more popular. But we must consider alternative hypotheses. The United States pet food industry was estimated at $103.3 billion in 2023, so there is clearly a market for pet food information. There is also a lot of competition for pet food information, from manufacturers and retailers to mainstream media outlets and specialty pet food websites, so it’s likely that our non-profit specialty hospital gets overshadowed in such a commerce-based topic.

However, there was one bright spot on AMC’s blog regarding food and nutrition: Labrador owners seemed to find useful a recent blogpost explaining the genetics of obesity in Labradors.

Universally Unpopular Obesity Blogs

My blogposts on obesity were unpopular across the board, with the number of clicks in the double and single digits. These numbers seem to confirm my theory that pet owners don’t recognize, or don’t want to talk about, the weight of their favorite fur person. Research backs this up, showing that pet owners are not very good at recognizing the status of their pet’s weight. About a quarter of pet owners underestimate the body condition score of their dog or cats, a measurement similar to body mass index (BMI) in humans. If pet owners can’t recognize obesity, or don’t want to think about it, they are not likely to be searching the topic on the internet.

A Research-Based Approach

This blogpost is a perfect example of how research works. You ask a question and collect data you think will answer the question. When you analyze the data, sometimes you are surprised, sometimes your theory is spot on. Click here to read more about research happening at AMC.