Hello and welcome to Business Daily from the BBC with me, Manuel Saragossa.

Coming up, the coronavirus pet boom.

Overall, business has been great with everything that's been happening in our lives.

And approximately we've seen almost half a million more pets in 2020 than we have in 2019.

But is that really good news for our furry friends?

The big unknown is what will happen after COVID,

how many people will still be in a position to look after a dog or a cat?

And a study that we ran recently showed that nearly half of people

who adopted a puppy during the first lockdown

have since regretted having that pet at some point.

That's all here in Business Daily from the BBC.

It's a very mild afternoon here on my usual dog walking route just outside London.

Monty, my dog, loves coming here, and we've been coming here for the past few years.

But I have to say that since the lockdown, since the lockdown started early last year, the number of dog walkers here has risen hugely.

I used to come across one or two or three, usually in the morning. Now they're absolutely everywhere, which is great for my dog Monty because he gets to

sniff at lots of other four-legged friends. Go on. Come on. To sniff at, but also to bark at. Go on,

Monty, fetch. Pet ownership in the developed world has soared since more people have started to work from home.

A Bank of America survey found 37% of Americans have adopted pets in the last six months alone.

In the UK, a surveyed by Ipsos Mori found that 41% of current pet owners got a new pet during lockdown.

It's a picture repeated across Europe.

In the Netherlands, the pet insurance company Pet Plans said it sold 60% more pet insurance

plans in the month of April last year than in the same month the year earlier.

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