Pet Industry Trends

Every year the shelter numbers come out, and every pet business posts the same headline. More adoptions. Growing market. Great time to invest. The 2025 data deserves a closer read than that, because the interesting part isn’t the total. It’s who did the adopting, and what that tells you about how cat care is going […]

Pay attention to the word “pet” for a week and you’ll notice something. It almost never means what it says. A pet store is a dog store with a cat aisle. A pet sitter is usually a dog walker who will also feed your cat. A pet franchise is, nine times out of ten, a […]

Deanna Jones, Founder · July 26, 2026 Remember coming home to an empty house, a key around your neck, and only the cat to tell your day to? Like, totally. We were the latchkey generation, and that early bond with our cats stayed with us. Now that our own kids are heading out and the […]

The Cat Renaissance: Why Experts Are Calling 2026 the Year for Cat Franchises Deanna Jones, Founder · July 26, 2026 Here at MEOW! we could not be more excited about the latest pet care industry data — and about why 2026 is shaping up to be the year for cat franchises. For decades, the pet […]

Cats Are Outpacing Dogs: The Cat Industry Trends Cat-Only Businesses Should Be Excited About Deanna Jones, Founder · March 14, 2026 A notable shift is unfolding in the pet industry, and for cats-only business models like ours it’s a big one. Cat acquisition is now outpacing dog acquisition. For entrepreneurs operating in the cats-only space, […]

The Year of the Cat: How Cats Became the Center of the Pet Industry Deanna Jones, Founder · July 26, 2026 If there was ever a moment to call “The Year of the Cat,” it’s now. The American Pet Products Association’s 2025 Dog & Cat Report put 49 million U.S. households in the cat column […]

Why Cat Lovers Keep Telling Us “There’s Nothing Like This” Deanna Jones, Founder · July 26, 2026 At MEOW! Franchising, we hear something almost every week from people who inquire about joining us. There’s nothing like this. In a franchise landscape full of duplication — burger chains, fitness studios, dog daycare centers — very few […]

What It’s Like Owning a MEOW! Cats-Only Business Michele Baughan, Owner · MEOW! at the Lake, Lake Monticello, Virginia · July 26, 2026 Michele owns and operates MEOW! at the Lake, an affiliate location rather than a franchised one. She is also founder Deanna Jones’s sister — a connection we mention up front because you […]

Marketplace or Local Business? What the Meowtel Acquisition Says About Cat Care Deanna Jones, Founder · January 30, 2026 In January, Rover Group — the largest online pet care marketplace, itself acquired by Blackstone in 2023 — announced it had acquired Meowtel, the cat-sitting marketplace founded in 2015. Meowtel brings more than 4,000 sitters and […]

In today’s evolving business landscape, more aspiring entrepreneurs are rethinking what business ownership looks like. Instead of opening a storefront or managing high overhead, many are turning to home-based franchise models built around niche markets — an approach that offers flexibility, affordability, and strong growth potential. Home-based franchises let owners run their business from home […]