As a pet owner, I am a fan of North America’s premier pet products trade show, SuperZoo. Because of covid, SuperZoo was not held last year, but this August returned for three days at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center. The show’s publicity boasted two years of new pet products.

I went to the show wearing my shield mask and carrying my video camera. I lifted the shield up a bit to narrate my videos, but discovered, upon playback, that the mask still muffled my words. So last Friday I sat home editing the video and re-doing the audio, a reasonably fun project when one is a retiree (and has a brand new iMac).

Though my SuperZoo video focuses on products, SuperZoo is also a place for pet professionals to learn. SuperZoo included 70 expert-led retail and grooming educational sessions. Retail subjects included “Visual Merchandising and Store Display,” “Hiring is Not an Interruption to Your Day” and “Jumping Into Ecommerce — What You Need to Know First”. Among the grooming education courses were titles such as “Baby Doll Grooming”, “Dermatology 101 for Groomers: The Skin is WAY More Than What Meets the Eye” and The Art of Asian Freestyle Grooming”.

Another popular part of SuperZoo is the grooming competitions where cash prizes of $35,000 are at stake. Watching this competition and the concentration of the groomers, I thought the prestige of being a winner was far more important than the money.

Sponsor of SuperZoo is the World Pet Association, whose web site boasts, “Everything we do is about uniting the pet community through knowledge, integrity, innovation and leadership.”

Pet products have grown in popularity during Covid and I heard two men at the show agreeing that folks surely spend more money on pets than on children. What do they spend on? Enjoy the attached video.