Darragh O'Hanlon

Like when you think about how we normally walk our dogs, you know, you walk up, you chat to your neighbour, things like that.

But back then we were giving people that two metre wide berth and maybe dogs were learning to be fearful of humans.

Or perhaps if you had a smaller dog, you might lift it up to avoid coming in contact with a human during those dark times.

Yeah, like definitely cost comes into it.

And it's not just vaccines like you would also have to consider, you know, controlling for worms and parasites.

So, you know, thankfully, again, Ireland, we're quite well, quite used to this.

But I had an owner even in this morning asking about tick prevention, you know, and, you know, Irish owners are particularly well informed about Lyme's disease and things like that.

But yes, we acknowledge that owners are concerned about cost.

Even Dogs Trust, for example, they did a big census.

The first dog census in Ireland was done in 2024 by Dogs Trust.

I think 26,000 people responded to it.

And the majority of owners were concerned about the ongoing cost of care of a dog, for example.

And each year, again, this is a 2024 study, but each year, I think the cost was around €1,600, including food.

But that didn't include things like, for example, kenneling, grooming, pet travel, those kind of things.

Well, it is.

And then obviously, if an animal becomes unwell, then there might be additional costs.

I think the way that I would look at, say, bringing your pet to a vet would be that not only are you getting a chance to put in place good preventative health care, but

so that you ultimately are not dealing with a very sick animal, you're preventing that from occurring in the first place.

So to give you another example, in particular on the eastern coast of Ireland, there would be a parasite known as lungworm that's quite prevalent.

And that, as the name suggests, can affect the lungs.