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Six signs pets are the economy's new big spenders

Some 82.5 million American households, or 68 percent, include domestic animals. Americans spent an all-time-high $55.7 billion on their pets last year, and spending will inch close to $60 billion this year. Here are six things driving the pet spending boom.

3. Pet Einstein

Cheryl Evans/The Arizona Republic/AP/File
Hank, a stray dog that the Brewers recently found wandering their practice fields at Maryvale Baseball Park watches spring training on Friday, Feb. 21, 2014, in Phoenix. The team and staff have been taking care of Hank since he was found at the park on President's Day. Hank is named after Hank Aaron.

  • By Lee Smith CNBC

Remember Baby Einstein, the children's products company that introduced the arts and humanities to infants to stimulate their curious side and hopefully turn them into "geniuses" (at least before the iPhone)?

Pet toymakers are starting to spare no expense in making increasingly complicated toys, as more pet owners make the bet that graduating kitty from cat nip to interactive toys will increase the number of neurons firing in the feline.

Two new toys for cats make the point. The Nina Ottosson MixMax Puzzle is a sort of three-dimensional board game with sliding panels. The owner hides a treat within the network of pieces, and the cat has to move them to find it. Another, the SmartyKat Hot Pursuit, consists of a round plastic mat with an electronic mouse hidden underneath. The mouse scurries around out of sight, and Tabby jumps on the bulge and bats it, never catching a mouse but willing to endlessly try. Sounds more like torture than toy, actually. But it does get the lazy cat up off the couch.

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Mark Sappenfield
Editor

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