With animals sharing the homes of humans and their role evolving into being a companion, attention drew to the level of bonding and the content of the relationship between the pet animal and its owner ^1,2, and a lot of research has been done to understand the nature of this relationship. These researches aimed to understand the general structure of the human-animal bond and to measure the strength of this bond ^3-7. Undoubtedly, the strength and quality of the bond the owner builds with his pet animal varies among individuals. While the bonding of some pet animal owners can be described as disinterested love, that of some others may reach the level of dependency. Some other owners may build their bond with animals on the purpose of taking advantage of them. Thus, the level of loyalty of owners to their pet animals may vary ^8,9. Even if described as being strong, the bond between a human and a pet animal may still lack the qualities of a loyal bond, such as devotedness, persistence, continuity and stability ¹⁰. The willing acceptance of a person to sacrifice for his object of value (purpose) and his perception of the interest of the object as his own interest both indicate his devotedness and strong bonding with the object of value ¹¹.

Several parameters show influence on the relationship of animal owners with their pets. One of these parameters is gender. In general, women show more empathy ^12-14 and a more positive attitude ^15-18 to animals, when compared to men. Another influential parameter is the age of the animal owner. Younger people are reported to be more affectionate to animals ^16,19. Furthermore, a higher monthly expenditure of the owner for his pet animal is also known to strengthen the bond between them ^20-21. Other parameters, which affect the owner-pet bond, include the marital and socioeconomic statuses of the animal owner and the age of the animal ^22-24.

While several studies have been conducted to investigate the strength of the bond between pet animals and their owners ^4,25-28, to the authors’ knowledge, there is no previous study on the measurement of the level of loyalty of animal owners to their pets. This study was aimed at measuring the level of loyalty of animal owners to their pets and determining the demographic variables influential on their level of loyalty.

Study Design: In this study, the Pet Loyalty Scale (PLS) was used to measure the level of loyalty of animal owners to their pets in Türkiye. A questionnaire was prepared to demonstrate the correlation between the attitudes assessed by this scale and the demographic variables.

Pet Loyalty Scale: This is a 19-item scale developed in Turkish by Çavuş Alan et al. (29) The items are scored from 1 (Strongly disagree) to 5 (Strongly agree) using a 5-item Likert scale. The PLS is a valid and reliable scale, consisting of four dimensions, namely, “Hearty commitment”, “Stability”, “Possibility of giving up” and “Responsibility”. Based on analysis, the total variance and Cronbach’s alpha value were determined as 62.1% and 0.764, respectively (29).

Questionnaire: The first section of the questionnaire, which was prepared by the authors of this study, aimed to collect data on several variables, including among others the age, gender, marital status, educational background, income level and type of dwelling of the respondent, the species, age, breed and sex of the pet animal, the time dedicated by the respondent to the pet animal, the method of adoption of the pet animal, (if valid) the price at which the pet animal was bought, the monthly cost of keeping the pet animal, and the place of sleep of the pet animal. This section included 19 questions, three of which were open-ended and 16 of which were closed-ended. The second section of the questionnaire consisted of the PLS.

Participants: The target group of the study was pet animal owners. The size of the target group was determined based on the number of pet animals in Türkiye, as published in the 2019 Report of the European Pet Food Industry (30). The study was conducted in İstanbul, İzmir and Ankara, which are the first three provinces in Türkiye with the highest household numbers (31) and highest veterinary buisness (clinic, polyclinic and animal hospital) numbers (32).

Data for this study were derived from the doctorate thesis titled "Development and Validation of a Scale for Measuring Pet Owners' Loyalty to Their Pet" (33). As this study is a follow-up of the indicated doctorate thesis, the sample groups of this study and the thesis are the same. In the indicated thesis, the sample group was determined according to the number of items generated by an explanatory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). In scale development research, it is recommended to set the sample number at least 5 times and even 10 times larger than the number of items generated by the EFA (34). In the study (29), the number of items generated by the EFA was 30. Thus, the sample number was calculated to be 10 times larger than the number of items (30 x 10), and thereby, was set as 300. The provincial distribution of the sample was based on the number of veterinary businesses in the study provinces, and the selection of the sample was performed with the proportional-stratified sampling technique (35). According to 2020 data, the total number of veterinary businesses in the provinces İstanbul (677), İzmir (416) and Ankara (271) was 1364. The sample number initially set as 300 was proportioned according to the number of veterinary clinics in the selected provinces, such that the numbers of participants to be surveyed at veterinary clinics in İstanbul, İzmir and Ankara were finalized as 150, 90 and 60, respectively.

The study was carried out by face-to-face interviewing pet animal owners, who had consulted the chosen veterinary clinics in Ankara, İstanbul and İzmir, and upon being informed volunteered to participate in the survey. The target audience comprised of pet animal owners aged 18 years and older with a history of at least 1 year of living together with cats and dogs. Prior to the interviews, all participants were given written and verbal information about the survey, and were assured for the confidentiality of their responses.

They were also assured of their right to withdraw from the study at any point. In order to ensure an accurate interpretation of the relationship of the survey participants with their pets, owners taking care of two or more animals were asked to respond by focusing on only one of their pets. The survey was applied to 300 pet animal owners, who met these conditions and willingly participated in this study. The study data were collected during the months of February and March in the year 2021.

Statistical Analysis: The PLS total scores were calculated using the SPSS 22 software. The highest and lowest scores that could be achieved on the PLS were 95 and 19, respectively. A higher total score on the scale indicated a higher level of loyalty of the owner to the pet animal. Furthermore, a higher total score achieved from the items related to the “Stability”, “Hearty commitment” and “Responsibility” dimensions and a lower score achieved from the items related to the “Possibility of giving up” dimension indicated a positive influence on the attitude related to the level of loyalty (29). The study data were analyzed by frequency and percentile distribution. Kolmogorov Smirnov Test and Shapiro-Wilk Test were performed to determine whether the data showed normal distribution. The test results revealed that the data showed normal distribution. Independent Sample T-Test was used in paired group comparisons and One-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used to compare more than two groups. In variance analysis, Levene’s Test was applied first to understand the homogeneity of variances and it was seen that the variances were homogeneous. Tukey test, one of the Post Hoc Tests, was used to reveal which groups there was a difference between and the relationship between the groups as a result of ANOVA. (36). The magnitude and direction of the correlation between the categorical demographic data (educational background, age, income level, age of pet animal, price paid for the adoption of the pet animal, monthly cost of keeping the pet animal) and scale scores were determined with Pearson’s correlation test.

Age of Animal Owners: The attitudes of the respondents with respect to the PLS (p=0.001) and Hearty commitment (p=0.001) significantly differed for the age variable. According to these data, the respondent age group with the highest scores from the PLS and the Hearty commitment dimension, in other words, showing the highest level of loyalty and the strongest hearty commitment was the youngest group aged 18-30 years. No difference was detected in the attitudes of the respondents with respect to the Stability, Possibility of giving up and Responsibility dimensions for this parameter (Table 1).

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Table 1: Distribution of participants by animal owner's age variable, scores obtained from PLS and its dimensions

Gender of Animal Owners: The attitudes of the respondents with respect to Hearty commitment (p=0.012), Stability (p=0.019), Responsibility (p=0.003) and the PLS (p=0.006) for this parameter showed that the female respondents had higher scores than the male respondents and their attitude differed from that of male. No difference was determined for gender in the attitudes of the respondents with respect to the Possibility of giving up (Table 2).

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Table 2: Distribution of participants by gender variable, scores obtained from PLS and its dimensions

Marital Status of Animal Owners: With respect to the Hearty commitment (p=0.003) and Responsibility (p=0.008) dimensions and the PLS (p=0.014), the single respondents were determined to have acheived significantly higher scores than the married respondents, and thus, to display attitudes different from those of the married. No significant difference was observed in the attitudes of the respondents with respect to the Stability or Possibility of giving up dimensions (Table 3).

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Table 3: Distribution of participants by marital status variable, scores obtained from PLS and its dimensions

Marital Status of Animal Owners: With respect to the Hearty commitment (p=0.003) and Responsibility (p=0.008) dimensions and the PLS (p=0.014), the single respondents were determined to have acheived significantly higher scores than the married respondents, and thus, to display attitudes different from those of the married. No significant difference was observed in the attitudes of the respondents with respect to the Stability or Possibility of giving up dimensions (Table 3).

Income Level of Animal Owners: It was determined that participants with a monthly income level below 6.609 TL ($923) obtained higher scores than participants with a monthly income level above 6.609 TL ($923) in terms of Hearty commitment and Stability dimensions as well as the PLS (Table 4).

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Table 4: Distribution of participants by income level variable, scores obtained from PLS and its dimensions

Age of Pet Animals: The attitudes of the respondents with respect to Stability (p<0.001), Possibility of giving up (p<0.05) and the PLS (p<0.05) were observed to differ for this variable. Analyses demonstrated that the owners of the oldest animals showed a more positive attitude with respect to the PLS, Stability and Possibility of giving up parameters, in comparison to the other respondents (Table 5).

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Table 5: Distribution of participants by animal age variable, scores obtained from PLS and its dimensions

Cost of Keeping Pet Animals: The analyses for the monthly cost of keeping pet animals showed that the respondents with the highest monthly expenditures showed more positive attitudes with respect to the Stability (p<0.001), Possibility of giving up (p<0.05) and responsibility (p<0.05) dimensions, when compared to the other respondents (Tablo 6).

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Table 6: Distribution of participants by variable of monthly amount spent on animals, scores obtained from PLS and its dimensions

The results of the Pearson’s correlation analysis, which was performed to demonstrate the correlation of the PLS and its dimensions with the variables, are presented in Table 7.

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Table 7: Correlation analysis results for PLS and its dimensions

Based on these results, it was observed that the income level of the respondent was weakly and negatively correlated with Hearty commitment (p<0.001; r=-0.203), Stability (p<0.001; r=-0.233) and the PLS (p<0.001; r=-0.213). Similarly, the age of the animal owner was also weakly and negatively correlated with Hearty commitment (p<0.001; r=-0.201), Stability (p<0.05; r=-0.117), Responsibility (p<0.05; r=-0.141) and the PLS (p<0.01; r=-0.166). The age of the pet animal was weakly and positively correlated with Hearty commitment (p=0.05; r=0.113) and weakly and negatively correlated with the Possibility of giving up (p<0.05; r=-0.140). Finally, the monthly cost of keeping the pet animal was weakly and positively correlated with Hearty commitment (p<0.05; r=0.124) and Responsibility (p<0.01; r=0.151), and weakly and negatively correlated with the Possibility of giving up (p<0.01; r=-0.190) (Table 7).

In this study, the attitudes of the respondents with respect to loyalty and Hearty commitment differed for the age of the animal owner. According to the PLS and Hearty commitment scores, the youngest respondents were determined to have more positive attitudes with respect to loyalty and Hearty commitment, in comparison to the older respondents (Table 1). The results of the correlation analysis were confirmatory, such that the attitudes of the respondents with respect to Hearty commitment, Stability, Responsibility and the PLS changed negatively with increasing age (Table 7). In a previously conducted study ^15, respondents aged 25 years and younger were reported to be more affectionate to animals, when compared to respondents aged 76 years and older. Likewise, in some other studies, young people were reported to show more interest in animals than the elderly ^16,19, to display a more positive attitude to animals (37), and to have a stronger perception of animal welfare ³⁸. Thus, our results appear to be consistent with literature data. Some studies ^39-41 have reported an increased occurrence of physical and mental disorders with advancing age, and Garrity et al. ⁴² have suggested that these disorders and emotional distress reduce the commitment of the elderly to pet animals. In view of the older respondents included in the present study having shown a more negative attitude with respect to the level of loyalty and hearty commitment to pet animals, when compared to the young respondents, it can be said that the speculations proposed in the abovementioned literature reports ^39-42 could explain the differences observed in the attitudes of the respondents included in the different age groups in the present study.

Gender is described as one of the major variables influencing the strength of the human-animal bond. It has been reported that, when compared to male, female are more committed to their pet animals ^17,23,43,44, show a more positive attitude to pets ^15-18,45, are more supportive of animal rights issues ^19,45, have a higher opinion of animal welfare ^12,46-48, and show more empathy towards animals ^12,14,46-48. Similarly, in the present study, based on the assessment of the attitudes of the respondents with respect to the PLS and its dimensions, it was determined that female, when compared to male, showed a more loyal, stable, responsible and heartily committed attitude to their pet animals (Table 2). Thus, the results of the present study agree with the abovementioned literature data. This may be related to the traditional gender roles that women generally assume as caregivers ^15,19.

The assessment of the attitudes of the respondents with respect to the PLS and its Responsibility and Hearty commitment dimensions for marital status demonstrated that the single respondents were significantly more loyal to their pet animals, when compared to the married respondents (Table 3). While some previously conducted studies have reported no statistically significant difference to be associated with the marital status of pet animal owners ^44,49, some other studies have suggested married pet animal owners to show a weaker commitment to their pet animals ^22,23 and to have a weaker perception of animal welfare ^48, when compared to single animal owners. The results of the present study are in agreement with these literature reports ^22,23,48. The differences observed between the attitudes of the married and single respondents could be related to multiple factors. For instance, Kellert and Berry ¹⁵ have claimed that increased responsibilities associated with marriage could reduce the ethical sensitivities of individuals. Furthermore, Walsh indicated that young people with no children perceive their pet animals as “soulmates”. As speculated in the literature ^26, in the present study, the higher level of loyalty of the single respondents to their pet animals, when compared to the married respondents, could be related to single individuals perceiving their pets as soulmates. In addition, considering that the number of people adopting pets increased during the pandemic period ^50, it can be said that this situation is related to overcoming the feeling of loneliness and providing social support.

Based on the assessment of the PLS, Hearty commitment and Stability scores of the respondents for monthly income, it was ascertained that, when compared to the respondents with a monthly income above 6.609 TL ($923), those with a low income showed a higher level of loyalty to their pet animals (Table 4). These data were confirmed by the results of Pearson’s test, as it was observed that the attitudes of the respondents with respect to hearty commitment, stability and loyalty were observed to be influenced negatively with an increasing income level (Table 7). While some studies have reported no statistically significant difference in the level of commitment of individuals to their pet animals in association with their income level ^51-54, one particular study reported that respondents with a high level of income were more committed to their pet animals, in comparison to respondents with a low level of income ⁵⁵. Some other studies suggested an inverse correlation between income level and commitment level, such that, when compared to individuals with a high income, those with a low income showed a higher level of commitment ²³ and a more positive attitude ⁵⁶ to their pet animals. Our results are consistent with literature reports suggesting an inverse correlation ^23,56. More comprehensive research on the impact of income level on the human-animal bond is needed to clarify this discrepancy across studies.

On the other hand, the assessment of the attitudes of the respondents with respect to the PLS and its Stability and Possibility of giving up dimensions for the age of the pet animal showed that pet animal owners displayed a more positive attitude to animals aged 8 years and older, in comparison to younger animals (Table 5). Results on the attitudes of the respondents with respect to the Possibility of giving up dimension were confirmed by the results of the correlation analysis (Table 7). Our overall assessment suggests that the ageing of the owner together with the pet animal increases his loyalty to the animal. The review of available research indicates that relevant studies have assessed the impact of the time spent with the pet animal rather than the age of the pet animal, and have demonstrated that a longer time spent with the animal increases the commitment of the owner to the pet ^17,49,57. In this context, the results of the present study agree with literature data as an older age of the pet animal could most possibly indicate the owner to have spent a longer time period with the animal.

The assessment of the study data for the monthly cost of keeping the pet animal showed that respondents, who had declared to pay for a greater monthly cost, showed more positive attitudes with respect to Stability, Possibility of giving up and Responsibility (Table 6). These data were confirmed by the results of the correlation analysis (Table 7). Our overall assessment suggests that the monthly expenditure of the owner to keep the pet animal could be used as an indicator of his level of loyalty to the animal. In fact, previous studies have reported that high expenses paid by owners for their pet animals indicate the presence of a strong bond between them ^20,21. Furthermore, it has also been indicated that owners consider themselves better parents, when they pay more for keeping their pets ⁵⁸. In this context, our results are consistent with literature data.

In conclusion, after the application of the PLS to animal owners, it was observed that as the age of the participants increased, their loyalty to their animals decreased; and as the age of the animal increased, the loyalty level increased. Furthermore, we determined that the young compared to the elderly, female compared to male, and singles compared to married persons displayed higher levels of loyalty to their pet animals. Moreover, respondents with a lower level of income and those paying for a higher cost to keep their pets also showed higher levels of loyalty to their pets.

In the present study, the definition of pet animal encompassed only dogs and cats. Furthermore, this study was conducted in three major provinces of Türkiye with the highest numbers of veterinary businesses and households. This may have caused sociocultural bias. On the other hand, the only criteria used for the selection of the sample were the participants owning a dog or cat and their age being older than 18 years. This is a limitation of the present study.

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