Making New Year's Resolutions for the Sake of Your Pet

New Year’s is the perfect opportunity to think about what you want from life during the next twelve months. Once you know what you want the most, you can make relevant resolutions. While there’s nothing wrong with popular resolutions like spending more time with family or losing weight, we want to focus on a different group of resolutions.

Specifically, we want to focus on resolutions related to your pet. Given all the joy that a pet can bring to your life, it’s normal to want to provide the best quality of life for your pet. But with all the challenges and obligations that life can bring, it’s normal to get overwhelmed and fall short in some areas of pet care. Fortunately, you can always make improvements if you’re willing to prioritize doing so, which is exactly what we’re going to focus on now:

1. Socialize

Not every pet wants to socialize in large settings like dog parks. However, almost all pets enjoy playing with a companion that’s similar in size. So if you not only want to spend more time playing with your pet but also want it to reap the benefits of being around other animals, committing to consistently arranging 1-on-1 play dates is a great resolution. While cat playdates may be more difficult because there is much more to consider - territory, anxiety, watching over them, neutral zones, transport - they are still possible, just trickier. 

2. Measure Your Pet’s Food

By using high-quality pet food ingredients, we’re able to ensure that dogs and cats get the nutrients they need. While eyeballing the serving size of your pet’s food may seem good enough, the variance in servings can really add up over the course of daily feedings. Resolving to use a measuring cup is a simple but very effective way to optimize your pet’s food intake.

3. Save Money

Even if your pet seems incredibly healthy, there’s always the chance of an accident or other incident requiring significant medical care. Since you never want to be in a position where you have to compromise about this kind of care, making a resolution to creating a savings fund for your pet can provide a lot of peace of mind. In terms of how much to save, a poll by Angie’s List about this topic found that 34% of respondents paid between $251 and $500 for an emergency vet visit, while 16% spent as much as $1,000 or more.

4. Check Your Pet’s Tag and/or Microchip

Although it’s something you will only need to do a couple of times a year, resolving to check your pet’s tag and/or microchip for accurate information can make all the difference in the event your pet ever accidentally gets out of your home. There are different types of chips and multiple registry databases, which means some chip companies let you do everything online and others require you to call them.

5. Try Something New Together

While all of the ideas for resolutions we’ve covered are great for both pets and their owners, trying something new together is our personal favorite. Whether it’s swimming with your dog or giving your cat the opportunity to see if it likes walking outside on a leash, introducing a new activity into your routine will give you a great new way to bond with your pet throughout the new year!