The AVMA has released its census that comes out every 5 years on pets and pet owners. The USA Today picked up a story on the release of the census.
According to the study, 7.6 million more households own pets than during their last census in 2001 -- raising the grand total to 59.5% of all homes owning a pet. By comparison, only 35% of US households have children under the age of 18.
Of those houselholds with pets, 66% own more than one pet, and just over 20% owned at least 5. That's aproximately 13 million households that have 5 or more pets. In total, this leads to 81.7 million cats in the US, and 72 million dogs. Vermont and Idaho have the highest % of pet ownership.
Overall, people spend $24.5 billion in medical care for these pets, leading pets to live longer lives.
All of this is great news for a lot of people. Vets will continue to have a lot of customers, and shelters should have a huge number of potential adopters as pet ownership increases.
Meanwhile, cities should be making note of the trends too. As more and more people own dogs -- and own multiple dogs -- public policy should reflect these changes in how people live. Cities need to be investing more money into dog parks, and walking trails. Ridiculously low pet limits should be gotten rid of (as 13 million households would be violating the law in the majority of Kansas City's cities and suburbs with their 5+ animals). With more dogs, cities are going to need to invest more money into their animal control departments to be sure they are keeping up with the times -- and work toward making their animal control departments self funding. They'll also improve policies that allow for outside seating at restaurants so restaurants can more easily allow pets to dine with their human patrons.
Meanwhile, in most cities and states, pet owners represent the MAJORITY of voters....which should make them more demanding of more pet-friendly policies -- including dog parks, cruelty cases, and anti-BSL.
Society is changing...cities that don't notice and keep up with these trends will be left behind as people will prefer to move to their pet friendlier counterparts.
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