Itchmo: News For Dogs & Cats

People love our pets and it definitely shows.

According to the 2007 “U.S. Pet Ownership and Demographic Sourcebook” published by the American Veterinary Medical Association, there are 43 million dog owning households compared with 37.5 million cat owning households, but 81.7 million cats compared to 72 million dogs. 59.5% of all homes own a pet, while according to the Census Bureau, about 35% of US households have children.

About 64% of all pet-owning households own more than one pet. Over 20% of these households own at least five pets.

Pet owners spent a total of $24.5 billion on veterinary care in 2006. In 2001, Americans spent $22.4 billion.

Nearly half of all pet owners, 48.7%, consider their pets to be members of their family.

Also, because of the extra care that pet owners are giving to their pets, pets are living much longer. Today, 44% of dogs are older than six-years-old, while in 1987, only 32% of dogs were that age. For cats, currently 44% of cats are over six-years-old, while in 1987, only 28% of cats were of that age or older.

Turtle ownership has also greatly increased — it has jumped 86% from 2001.

Source: USA Today

(Thanks Carole)

This entry was posted on Friday, December 14th, 2007 at 3:50 am and is filed under Other Pets, Cats, Dogs, National Dog, Cat & Pet Info, News for Cats, Dogs & Owners. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.