20/08/2026

THURSDAY | AUG 20, 2026

24

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M ALAYSIANS overwhelmingly see their pets as family, but most have not put any money aside for the day something goes wrong, according to Versa’s Paws & Pockets Survey on how the country really pays for pet ownership. Love is real, budgeting is not 91% of Malaysian pet owners say their pet is a member of the family, not just a companion animal. But most have not backed that up with a savings plan: The majority have no dedicated fund, savings or insurance set aside for their pet, leaving them to cover costs out of whatever cash is on hand when something goes wrong. That gap shows up in owners’ own budgets, too. A clear majority say they have had to cut back on their own personal spending to pay for their pet, and a meaningful share say it happens regularly rather than once in a while. Feeding, grooming and everyday supplies alone push many owners past RM150 a month per pet – before any medical costs are added in. Two-thirds have been hit with surprise vet bill 66% of pet owners have faced a sudden veterinary emergency and a notable share have paid well over RM2,000 for a single incident. That exposure only grows with pet count – nearly three in 10 are caring for three or more pets at once, most commonly cats, which outnumber dogs two to one in Malaysian homes, meaning more animals in the household and more chances for an unplanned bill to land. Most covered the bill out of personal savings, with a smaller group turning to a credit card. Far fewer had a dedicated pet fund or pet insurance to draw on instead, and some said they simply could not afford it. Female owners carry more of the cost, with less of cushion Female pet owners are nearly twice as likely as male owners to have paid over RM2,000 for a single vet emergency, and are more likely to have faced a sudden vet bill in the first place. They also report spending more on their pet’s everyday needs each month than male owners do. Yet women are the ones with the thinner safety net. Female owners are less likely than male owners to have a dedicated fund or pet insurance set aside, and more likely to say they have had to cut back on their own personal spending to cover their pet’s costs – carrying more of the financial risk with less of a cushion

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Do you have enough set aside for pet emergencies? o Survey finds most owners have no dedicated fund, savings, insurance if something goes wrong, with women nearly twice as likely as men to pay over RM2,000 for single incident

Cats outnumber dogs two to one in Malaysian pet-owning households. – 123RFPIC

questions are based on the 4,872 respondents who currently own a pet). Gender comparisons are based on respondents’ Versa account profiles (2,946 male and 1,925 female pet owners).

ownership, spending habits and veterinary emergencies. Figures are based on self reported responses. Percentages are rounded and calculated against the relevant respondent base for each question (pet-ownership

to absorb it. Released by digital wealth and savings platform Versa, the survey polled 10,055 respondents in Malaysia between July and August 2026 via the app, covering pet

Dogs can distinguish between emotions on human face, study shows

A peek inside dogs’ brains revealed man’s best friend can distinguish emotions in people’s faces, researchers at the University of Vienna have found, providing what they said was the first ever evidence of such an ability. In the study, researchers used machine learning to analyse brain scans of 12 dogs as the animals viewed images of human faces displaying different emotions, the university said in a recent press release. Researchers found brain regions linked to higher cognitive functions and reward processing – the temporal cortex and caudate nucleus – were activated only by images of happy strangers. Anger, fear and sadness did not trigger those regions, according to the study, recently published in Cell Press journal iScience. However, when the researchers looked at the whole brain, they found

distinct activity patterns that differentiated fear from anger and sadness, providing the first evidence that dogs can tell apart specific negative facial expressions. Dogs “have evolved with us to understand our expressions and cooperate with us, and recognising that can change how we communicate with and care for them,” senior author Laura Cuaya said. The researchers next plan to investigate how dogs integrate other cues, including body language, voice nuances and scent, to interpret the humans around them. They also hope to compare how human and canine brains process the same emotional signals. The researchers added that participants in the study were all pets from loving families and cautioned that dogs outside such environments may respond to human emotional cues differently. – Reuters

A study suggests that dogs can tell apart specific negative facial expressions. – 123RFPIC