COMPANIONABLE ANIMALS

Profile America — Sunday, May 7th. National Pet Week and Be Kind to Animals Week both begin their observances today. While pets are a source of companionship, many dogs provide protection and act as eyes for the blind. Less is expected of cats, who deign to keep humans around as household staff. Dogs are found in 44 percent of U.S. homes, cats in just over one-third. Those favoring cats usually have more of them, thus there are about 86 million household cats versus 78 million dogs. Among other companion animals in America’s 80 million households with pets, we have over 8 million birds, 3.2 million rabbits, and 1.1 million lizards. Animal food manufacturing is a nearly $60 billion a year business in the U.S. for more than 1,700 establishments. You can find more facts about America from the U.S. Census Bureau online at www.census.gov.

Sources:
National Pet Week & Be Kind to Animals Week/accessed 3/6/2017: www.avma.org/Events/pethealth/Pages/default.aspx
Dog and cat populations and households/accessed 3/6/2017: www.humanesociety.org/issues/pet_overpopulation/facts/pet_ownership_statistics.html
Other pets/accessed 3/6/2017: www.avma.org/KB/Resources/Statistics/Pages/Market-research-statistics-US-pet-ownership.aspx
Value of animal food production/Annual Survey of Manufacturers/ NAICS 3111: https://factfinder.census.gov/bkmk/table/1.0/en/ASM/2015/31GS101//naics~31111
Number of establishments/ County Business Patterns/NAICS 3111: https://factfinder.census.gov/bkmk/table/1.0/en/BP/2014/00A1//naics~31111

Profile America is produced by the Center for New Media and Promotion of the U.S. Census Bureau. Statistics and accounts drawn from cited non-Census sources are employed for illustrative or narrative purposes, and are not attested to by the U.S. Census Bureau. These daily features are available as produced segments, ready to air, on the Internet at http://www.census.gov (look for “Audio” in the “Library” pull-down menu).

SOURCE U.S. Census Bureau