80% of pet owners want to make Portugal more pet-friendly

Portuguese pet owners consider a city to be pet-friendly when there are enough parks and green areas including pet-friendly policies.

Portuguese cities received a score of 7.13 out of 10 for their pet-friendliness, but almost half (48%) of pet owners say they don’t know or go to pet-friendly places with their pets, and one in three people say they have been prevented from entering places of business, commerce or services because they were accompanied by their pet.

These are some of the conclusions of the study ‘A better world for pets: pets in Portugal’, which presents a portrait of pet owners in Portugal and their perspective and analysis of how pet-friendly Portuguese cities are.

With this study, Mars wants to highlight possible collaborative initiatives and projects that can create ‘a better world for pets’, for their owners and for everyone around them. Dogs are the most popular pet in Portugal, with 63% of respondents saying they have a dog at home. This is followed by cats (58%) and, at a great distance, birds and fish, with only 13% and 9%, respectively, claiming to have these pets.

More than half of the owners (55%) live in apartments and are over 35 years old (67%). But only 36% have minor children in their care.

These pets came to their current owners mainly through a friend or acquaintance, 48% in the case of dogs and 47% in the case of cats, and around 20% were adopted through animal welfare associations. In the case of dogs, it should also be added that 21% were adopted from breeders and, in the case of cats, 20% were picked up from the street.

Almost half of dog owners say they spend between 30 minutes and an hour playing or walking their dogs every day, and 36% spend longer. Cat owners, on the other hand, say they spend only four hours a week interacting with their pet, a much lower figure.

Is Portugal pet-friendly?

Portuguese pet owners consider a city to be pet-friendly when there are enough parks and green areas (73%), and when local authorities adopt and implement pet-friendly policies (64%).

With regard to the daily experience of Portuguese cities in the company of pets, what dog and cat owners miss most about the places where they live is, in order of importance: restaurants that accept pets (45%), more parks and green areas (34%), and 32% indicate that they would like to have more places where they can leave their pets while they are at work. In addition, nine out of 10 owners have never taken their pets with them on public transport.

Almost half (48%) of pet owners say they don’t know or go to pet-friendly places with their pets, a statistic that indicates that a very considerable percentage of Portuguese don’t do leisure activities outside the home in the company of their pets.

Even so, 30% say they know of shopping centers that allow pets and 28% know of restaurants. In addition, around one in three people say they have been prevented from entering places of business, commerce or services because they were accompanied by their pet.

Portuguese cities receive a ‘Good’

On a scale of 0 to 10, where 0 is not at all pet-friendly and 10 is very pet-friendly, pet owners in Portugal give their city an average score of 7.13, i.e. Good. On this point, more than 80% of those who have pets were willing to work with the local authority to improve the place where they live and make it more pet-friendly.

Travelling with pets – Comboios de Portugal

First clinic in Portugal with therapeutic veterinary hyperbaric chamber for dogs and cats.