世論 What Japan Thinks

Pet and Family, an insurance company who bill themselves as being “low cost and short term”, took a look at pet owners’ plans for Golden Week. Golden Week is just ending as I type this; the 29th of April and the 3rd, 4th and 5th are public holidays in Japan, and many employers (including mine) make the intervening days holidays too, and this week-long holiday period is known as Golden Week.

Demographics

Between the 12th and 14th of April 2013 1,667 pet (presumably cat and dog only) owners from all over the country aged between 20 and 79 completed “internet research”. The means by which the sample were chosen, etc, is not disclosed. 68.0% of the sample were male, but no further demographic information was given.

Note further that it does not say if any people had both cats and dogs. or two sizes of dogs, etc, or if they had, how they should answer Q1 and others.

I’d like to see more detailed breakdown of the figures; how many people who went on overnight trips left their pets (specifically cats) home alone? When I was single, I left my cat at home for a maximum of three nights, although that was the exception rather than the rule, as I usually took him to a cattery. However, in Japan there are few catteries, so if we go away we have to put our cats in with the vets, and they just have a large-sized box to stay in.

I didn’t do anything this Golden Week bar one trip to the theatre (I slept through much of the first act!) and one trip to see the in-laws.
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This is a survey that would have been quite interesting to see in full, but even this small extract in japan.internet.com from a survey by goo Research into cat people and dog people was rather enjoyable.

Research results

Between the 4th and 6th of June 2012 1,091 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.5% of the sample were male, 15.9% in their teens, 17.8% in their twenties, 21.7% in their thirties, 16.2% in their forties, 16.2% in their fifties, and 12.2% aged sixty or older.

I’m a cat person, for many of the reasons listed below. Dogs are friendly because they see you as their leader, but cats like or dislike you just because they can, so to have cats sit on your lap is a sign of mutual trust, unlike a canine’s genetically-programmed hierarchical response.
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Ah yes, another wonderful trolling headline after my dog food survey from a few years back! Note that it means that 8% of cat owners make food for themselves that they sometimes either share or pass the left-overs to Tibbles, not that eight out of ten cat owners prefer Kit-e-Kat! Any, back at the survey, it was from DIMSDRIVE Research, looking at pet food, and dog and cat food in particular.

Demographics

Between the 24th of December 2009 and the 20th of January 2010 (another slow report!) 14,716 members of the DIMSDRIVE online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.8% of the sample were male, 0.8% in their teens, 8.8% in their twenties, 28.4% in their thirties, 33.5% in their forties, 18.7% in their fifties, and 9.8% aged sixty or older.

If I was buying a kitten now (as opposed to getting a free moggy) I’d probably go for a Scottish Fold. There’s a really lovely Scottish Fold that regularly visits a nearby pet shop – he’s very relaxed and doesn’t mind being the centre of attention when he’s out for walkies.
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Alternatively subtitled “Over half of single Japanese sleep with their dogs”, but that sort of headline has got me into trouble before! When Yahoo! Japan Value Insight took a look at dog ownership, they found out that and many other interesting facts.

Demographics

Between the 25th and 27th of June 2010 560 members of the Yahoo! monitor group living in Tokyo or the three surrounding prefectures with only one dog completed a private internet-based questionnaire. There were 100 of both men and women who were married with children, 68 men and 100 women married with no children, and 92 men and 100 women unmarried and living alone. The ages of each sub-group ranged from 20 to 59 years old. There was also another 100 of both men and women unmarried but living at home, but their answers were not reported.

I’m a cat person myself with a mild dog phobia, so I cannot but be amazed at the stupidity of the owners. On the other hand if it were felines, I would fully accept the results as a balanced representation of the respect humans have for their cat masters!

Photo from Chi (in Japan) on flickr.
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Or your Japanese boyfriend for that matter, the subject of a recent goo Ranking survey into the moments when people realise as they have a dog they don’t need a partner.

Demographics

Between the 18th and 21st of December 2009 1,077 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 51.0% of the sample were female, 8.7% in their teens, 15.3% in their twenties, 27.0% in their thirties, 27.8% in their forties, 11.9% in their fifties, and 9.3% aged sixty or older. Note that the score in the results refers to the relative number of votes for each option, not a percentage of the total sample.

Not being a dog person, I cannot relate to the question, although I can relate to answers number… heck, just about all of them. However, number 18 is a little bit…
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Here’s a topic that makes me purr with satisfaction, a recent survey from iShare into pet blogs which found that blogging cats were much more popular than dogs.

Demographics

Between the 14th and 19th of May 2009 565 mobile phone-owning members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.6% of the sample were male, 35.0% in their twenties, 31.7% in their thirties, and 33.3% in their forties.

I don’t read any pet blogs myself, but my wife keeps a regular watch on Nyanny Cat Cafe, some person with a cocker spaniel whose blog isn’t really interesting enough for me to look for to provide a link, and a vegan Japanese ex-resident of Edinburgh dog-owning woman.

I (well, my wife used my name) also recently won a cat photo book. In Q3, the “other” category would include alpaca, as there is a bit of an alpaca fad doing the rounds these days.
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infoPLANT recently published a survey into dog food. Using their usual method of a public self-selecting survey from within the iMode menuing system, 5,278 people successfully completed the survey during one week at the beginning of August. The sample size was 65.9% female. This time, the self-selecting nature of the survey is not too much of a problem, as I doubt if there is much correlation between having a dog and having a mobile phone.

Please excuse the sensationalist but accurate story title; I’ve found recently that it’s the silly stuff that attracts the punters, and some serious but important surveys have had very little traffic. In fact, there’s a new premium dog food on the market that advertises itself as being not just edible, but in fact tasty for humans too! The company even has the British Royal Family’s seal of approval, but I can’t quite imagine the Queen sitting down with the corgis and tucking in together, somehow. Prince Charles, though, now that’s a different matter.
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MyVoice conducted a web-based opinion poll amongst the 12,311 members of their internet community, of whom 57% were female, to find out their opinions about keeping pets. Given that most of the pet shops I see seem to be 80% dogs and dog-related items, I’m very suprised to see that cats are scoring so highly! Perhaps it’s just that cats are easier to obtain from friends than dogs?

Q1: Do you currently keep a pet at home?

Yes	39.3%
Plan to get one in the near future	0.9%
I want to keep one sometime	18.6%
I’ve no plan to get one	41.2%

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In Japan, Christmas cards are, obviously, almost unheard of, so instead the traditional season’s greetings are done via 年賀状ハガキ nengajou hagaki, New Year’s greetings postcards. The themes for the cards usually reflect the Chinese zodiac with this coming year being the Year of the Dog, so no doubt, given the current dog boom in Japan, stupid chihuahuas will adorn most cards. I usually send cards out to my colleagues, but this year, thanks to new privacy regulations, the list of home addresses of my colleagues is now Company Confidential, so we have been banned from creating personal address books from the data!

SourceNext conducted a small net-based survey on people’s plans for the coming season, and found out the following snippets of information. The sample was 516 people from all over the country, exactly 50:50 male and female, carried out in mid-September.

Q1: Do you plan to send New Years greeting cards (not just postcards, including e-mail or mobile-phone message, etc) this coming New Year? (Sample size=516)

Yes	89.7%
No	10.3%

Q2: What way will you send your greetings? (Sample size=463, multiple answer)

Postcard	95.7%
e-mail	37.1%
Mobile phone	31.1%
Web-based greetings car service	18.6%
Others	0.0%
No answer	0.0%

Q3: Including e-mail, etc, in total about how many New Year’s greetings will you send? (Sample size=463)

10 or less	7.6%
11 to 30	28.3%
31 to 50	21.4%
51 to 100	23.3%
101 or more	19.4%

Q4: Including e-mail, etc, will you use separate designs for work and personal, etc, New Year’s greetings? (Sample size=463)

Yes	51.8%
No	48.2%

Q5: About how many different designs will you make? (Sample size=480 where did that number come from? Shouldn’t it be 463*51.8%=240? Since there are two sub-questions, everyone counts twice?)

Work use

Two designs	54.2%
Three designs	2.1%
Four designs	0.4%
Five or more designs	0.8%
Won’t make or won’t separate (ie 0 or 1)	42.5%

Personal use

Two designs	63.3%
Three designs	17.1%
Four designs	2.9%
Five or more designs	10.0%
Won’t make or won’t separate (ie 0 or 1)	6.7%

Q6: When do you plan on buying your New Year postcards? (Sample size=443)

As soon as they go on sale	20.5%
November (but not ASAP)	25.1%
December	31.4%
January (!)	0.7%
Not decided	22.3%

Q7: When do you plan on starting making (ie writing or printing) your New Years greetings cards? NB: Last posting date is 24th December. (Sample size=443)

November	5.6%
December 1st to 24th	64.8%
December 25th to 31st	17.2%
January	1.6%
Not decided	10.8%

Q8: How will you make the postcards cards? Answer for the picture side and address sides separately. (Sample size=433+433=886, multiple answer)

	By hand	Software	Home printing machine	Order from printing company	Others
Address side	33.0%	68.2%	1.4%	0.7%	1.1%
Picture side	16.5%	77.9%	4.1%	6.8%	5.9%

Q9: What sort of greetings card do you want to use? (Sample size=463, multiple answer)

Chinese zodiac picture or illustration	75.8%
Other illustration	30.2%
Pet photo	6.9%
Family or children photo	21.2%
Others	5.6%

Q10: About how much would you spend on greetings card design software? (Sample size=117) Presumably there was a “Would you buy design software?” question to cut down the sample size.

Up to 1000 yen	20.5%
Up to 2000 yen	26.5%
Up to 3000 yen	31.6%
Up to 5000 yen	17.1%
Up to 8000 yen	3.4%
Over 8000 yen	0.9%

Q11: Why would you buy card design software? (Sample size=117, multiple answer)

For this year’s original contents	77.8%
For the latest features	33.3%
Others	7.7%

This week’s silly survey, once again from Trivia no Izumi, took 100 mongrels and 100 owners, and when they went out for a walk, the owner fell over ill and hoped Lassie would come home and drag someone out to rescue their dying master. Of course, most people brimmed with confidence regarding their dog’s intelligence, but quite unsurprisingly to me, all failed miserably. A few dogs did demostrate concern, I thought, but then again others just took the chance to have a free run-around.