Pet statistics and research
Zooming Paws Research compiles US pet statistics from the organisations that collect them, saves a copy of every source, and publishes the tables and charts for anyone to reuse with credit. Every figure carries a label that says how it was produced.
How to read our figures
Three labels on every number
- Counted
- From an official or industry database that records events as they happen, such as federal price indexes, a licence list or a breed registry.
- Surveyed
- From a sample survey of households or owners. We give the survey year and, where the publisher states it, the sample size.
- Estimated
- From a model or an extrapolation. We name who made it and show its range; where the publisher gives no range, we say so.
Research
Research pages
- Estimated2025Reviewed October 27, 2026
5.79 million
dogs and cats entered US shelters and rescues in 2025
Shelter Animals Count model estimate for all known organisations, not a full count.
Shelter dogs and cats by the numbers
Read the research - Estimated2026 model, inputs 1996–2025Reviewed October 27, 2026
1.96 million
Range 1.27 million to 3.48 million
dogs bought from US breeders a year (central estimate)
A model, not a count of puppies born: there is no official national puppy-birth count, and the acquisition-rate bounds come from a 1996 household survey.
How many puppies are born in the US each year
Read the research - Surveyed2024Reviewed October 27, 2026
$880
average spending on pets per BLS consumer unit in 2024
BLS household survey mean, including households with no pets.
Pet spending in America
Read the research
Method
How we build research pages
Every number on a research page is drawn from a data file, never typed into the text, and each data file points to a copy of the source document we downloaded. If a figure could not be found in a source we could save, it does not appear; the gap is listed in the page’s limitations instead.
Where sources disagree, we show both and explain why. We publish our own tables and charts, not the publishers’ full datasets, and we review each page when its publishers release new data. The full rules are on how we calculate.
Coming next: pet ownership by state, once state-level survey data can be sourced.
Last reviewed . Figures are compiled from the named sources for information. Definitions vary by publisher; not for legal or regulatory use.