Blog Post #1 PET DOMINATION! “THE PET LANDSCAPE”

What does the Australian pet landscape look like?

OUR PET POPULATION

Did you know that there are more pets in Australia than people!

Hard to believe I know…Here is the breakdown based on estimates from a survey conducted by Animal Medicines Australia in October 2019¹.

• There are approximately 5.1 million dogs, more than 3.7 million cats, 11.3 million fish, and more than 5.5 million birds.
• There are also many other kinds of Aussie pets like 600 thousand small mammals such as guinea pigs, hamsters, mice; more than 350 thousand reptiles like snakes and lizards and nearly 1.8 million other interesting kinds of pets; like horses and llamas.

That means that there are an estimated 29 million pets in Australia. And with a human population of around 25 million, that means that there are more pets in Australia than there are humans!

PET PREFERENCES

Not everyone has a pet, so who does own all of these pets? Well, if we take a look at the numbers of households that own pets the breakdown is interesting:

• There are more households in Australia with pets than there are households without pets
• 61% of Australian households own a pet compared to 39% of households that do not have pets

So, when you are driving down the street, for every 5 houses that you pass, on average 3 of them will have some sort of pet as part of their family!

It goes to show, here in Australia, we do love our pets because that is a pretty high degree of pet ownership. Whilst there are greater total numbers of fish and birds than dogs, the people who do keep birds and fish tend to keep larger numbers of these pets. For example someone who keeps fish is likely to have a tank or a bowl with a number of fish, and for those that keep birds, perhaps a whole aviary or a cage with more than one bird.

So what is the most popular pet in terms of the number of homes that have that particular pet?

Well its dogs as I’m sure many of you will have guessed. Dogs are the most popular pet (40%) followed by cats (27%), then fish (11%) and birds (9%).

THE GLOBAL PET LANDSCAPE

Let’s have a look at how the numbers play out in some other countries across the globe.  Recent surveys from the USA conducted by the American Pet Products Association suggest that 67% of US households own a pet². The data suggests that 50% of households own a dog, about 34% own a cat, just over 10% own fish, 4.5% own birds, 4% own small mammals and about 3.5% own reptiles. Just over 1% have a horse. So similar to Australia, dogs are the most popular pet followed by cats.

In the UK, the Pet Food Manufacturers’ Association found that approximately 41% of UK households have pets³. Although this seems a lot lower than the pet ownership in Australia and the U.S.A., the UK survey didn’t appear to have included fish ownership which may have increased the overall figure somewhat. The UK breakdown shows that 23% of households have a dog, 16% have a cat, approximately 1.5% own birds, just over 1% of households own reptiles and about 3% own small mammals. Once again dogs are the most popular pet, followed by cats.

Remember, if you’re trying to do the maths, some households may own more than one type of pet, so there will be some overlap between the percentage of households owning a certain pet type. For example, one household might own a dog as well as have fish and a bird.

PET POPULARITY

We’ve seen that dogs and cats are the most popular pets, yet there are many different breeds. So which breeds tend to be the most popular?

Popular Dog Breeds

In Australia some of the most popular dog pure breeds are¹:

• Labrador retrievers

• Border Collies
• German Shepard’s
• Staffordshire Bull Terriers
• Chihuahuas
• Golden retrievers

Mixed breeds are also common, and include mixes of¹:

• Kelpie
• Maltese
• Jack Russell
• Staffordshire Bull Terrier
• Cattle Dog
• Shih Tzu
• Labrador Retriever

Then we have the “designer” breeds which have become more popular of late and include mixes of¹:

• Poodle
• Maltese
• Cavalier King Charles Spaniel

• Shih Tzu
• Labrador Retriever

Popular Cat Breeds

As far as cats go, the vast majority of cats owned in Australia are a mix of breeds These cats are commonly referred to as domestic short haired cats.

Those owners that do have pure breeds commonly own¹:

• Ragdoll
• Burmese
• Siamese
• British Shorthair
• Persian
• Bengal
• Russian Blue
• Maine Coon

WHATS YOUR PET PREFERENCE

In a population passionate about pets, how are you contributing to these statistics? And Which pets do you own?

If you were considering getting another pet, would it be the same as what you have now….or would you get something different?

And if you don’t yet own a pet, what kind of pet would you consider getting?

Share your comments and thoughts below or on social; And for more information on the surveys mentioned, check out my blog post which has links to all the statistics.

References:

1. https://animalmedicinesaustralia.org.au/report/pets-in-australia-a-national-survey-of-pets-and-people/, accessed 22 October 2020
2. https://www.americanpetproducts.org/press_industrytrends.asp, accessed 22 October 2020
3. https://www.pfma.org.uk/pet-population-2020, accessed 22 October 2020