You don’t need us to tell you how wonderful dogs are! The world’s favorite pet is also the most popular here in the USA.

But just how many people own dogs? How many are planning to own dogs? And has our interest in canine companions been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic? We take a look in our 2021 USA dog ownership statistics research.

The quick version

If you’re not here for the detail, then here’s our quick rundown of the key findings. You can read more about each and our methodology below.

• More than half the US population (56.04%) owns a dog
• A further 13.11% are planning to either get a puppy or rehome a rescue dog in the near future
• Searches in Google USA for “puppies for sale” more than tripled in April 2020 compared with April 2019. By April 2021, this has dropped back down to levels more in line with 2019, showing the impact the pandemic had on demand for puppies.
• The same happened with searches for “adopt a dog”
• In Houston, almost three quarters of people own at least one dog, making the Texas city the dog ownership capital of the USA

How many people own dogs in the USA?

We surveyed 2,000 US residents in March 2021 and found the following:

• 56.04% of people own at least one dog
• 14.76% of people in the USA own more than one dog
• 7.53% of people do not currently own a dog but plan to buy a puppy in the near future
• 5.58% of people do not currently own a dog but plan to rehome a rescue dog in the near future

Dog ownership varies by age, with those in the 35 – 44 year age group the most likely to own at least one dog (72.38%) and those over 55 the least likely to (45.14%).

Dog ownership by city

As a part of our US dog ownership survey, respondents were asked which city they live in (or which is the nearest to them). We looked at this data and added together the proportion of people who said they own one dog or own more than one dog right now. This gave us the figure for current dog ownership in 2021 in major cities across several states in the USA. Here are those statistics:

Dog ownership by State and City

We broke our ownership figures down to look at ownership in some of the biggest cities across the county

• In Houston, Texas, almost three quarters of all people own at least one dog
• Of the top 5 cities for dog ownership in the USA, 3 are in California (San Jose, San Diego and Los Angeles)
• At the other end of the scale, just 47.65% of people in or near to Washington DC own a dog

Demand for Dogs in Search

A great way to gain insight into the popularity of something or trends is to look at how people search for it in Google and with what frequency.

With that in mind, we took a look at the number of people making various searches relating to down ownership across the USA as a whole and state by state (data from kwfinder.com).

Puppy Searches in the USA

There are thousands upon thousands who head to Google each month to look for puppies for sale.

We looked at searches in Google USA for 3 specific keywords:

• Adopt a puppy
• Buy a puppy
• Puppies for sale

Here’s what we’ve seen over time with those particular searches.

Based on data taken from kwfinder.com

We’ve seen lots of chatter online about a spike in dog ownership and interest over the coronavirus pandemic as more of spend more time at home. But is it reflected in the figures? It seems so.

• April 2019 saw 301,000 searches in the USA for “puppies for sale,” and this rose to 1,000,000 in April 2020
• Before falling back to 301,000 in April 2021 as restrictions began to ease.

The Most Popular Ways we Look for Dogs

Based on the same research we pulled from kwfinder.com, we can see the most popular ways in which people search for dogs.

The numbers here show the average searches in Google USA per month based on an average of the past 12 months  (March 2021 to February 2022)

We certainly see search weighted towards puppies over dogs for prospective new owners.

Pet Ownership Statistics (According to the APPA)

We’ve seen from our survey how many individuals own dogs now and also how many may be planning to own a dog in the near future. But what do bigger studies say about household numbers with pets in? And what does this mean for our spend on pet products?

We took at a look at statistics from the American Pet Product Association.

• 63,400,000 households in the USA own a dog
• The pet product market made $106 billion in sales in 2020
• This was up from $97.1 billion in 2019 and $90.5 billion in 2018

Market Growth in the Pet Products Space

We’re continuing to see astronomical growth in an already huge marketplace

What will the effect of the pandemic be on dog ownership in years to come?

The dog is clearly America’s favorite furry friend already. And with a surge in demand demonstrated in these statistics, the question then remains, what happens next? 

Will a surge in new puppies ultimately result in more strain on already full dog rescues in coming years? Will the pet product industry grow?

We hope that the surge in interest results in even more happy homes filled with dogs. And maybe, just maybe, we’ll be back here in 2022 with a new set of statistics showing just that.