Knowing my Audience

Before I could produce my brochures, I had to understand the demographics of the population of pet owners in Singapore. Understanding the reasons some pets are not vaccinated and if pets are up to date with their vaccination boosters.

I conducted an online survey for owners of dogs and cats to get a better idea of the situation of pet vaccination in Singapore.

140 owners consisting of 43 cat owners and 97 dog owners, responded to the survey. Social media was harnessed to spread the survey around.

With the advancement in technology, many owners now get information from the internet. However, this information sourced from the internet may not be accurate. The best source of information with regards to pet care is from veterinarians. The respondents were asked to rank which sources were most important to them.

The lowest score would represent the most important source.

The score of sources of information ranking

It looks like the owners do find that veterinarians are the most important source of pet care information!

The survey also found that 6% of dogs and 33% of cats had, either not completed their initial vaccinations or not done them at all. Owners were backed with reasons for not having these vaccinations done or completed.

The most significant bit to this survey was gauging the pet vaccination awareness level within these owners. Majority of owners were aware of pet vaccinations.

6 cat owners and 11 dog owners were unaware of vaccination boosters. 2 of dog owners were unaware of puppy vaccinations.

This may mean that the project at hand could help raise awareness to the unaware owners. The 140 owners are just a small fraction of owners.

A straits times infographic indicates that the total number of pets in Singapore in 2016 is around 824,600 (Chia, 2016). Meaning this survey only captured the vaccination status of 0.017% of pets in Singapore. Considering that there was an upward trend of pets owned in Singapore, there could be many more owners. With this, there is a possibility that many more pets are unprotected from vaccine-preventable diseases.

Although a minority, this project will benefit many pet owners and save the lives of more pets.

References:

Chia, R (2016) Puppy love breeds more pet services. The Straits Times. Retrieved from https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/puppy-love-breeds-more-pet-services