Detailed Assessment of Pet Ownership Rates in Four Underserved Urban and Rural Communities in the United States

ABSTRACT

Understanding pet ownership in a community is an important factor for assessing the effectiveness of animal welfare programming. Data on pet ownership were collected from 2,327 households in two urban and two rural zip codes. The percentage of households owning pets and the species owned were calculated for the individual communities, the urban and rural pairs, and the aggregate data. Findings were compared to the 2017–2018 AVMA Pet Ownership and Demographics Sourcebook data. The rural communities had an 11.5% higher rate of overall pet keeping and a 19% higher dog ownership rate than the urban communities, but the measured cat ownership rate was similar in all four sites at an average of 19.4% (SD = 2.1%). The community-specific rates of pet ownership were different (p < .0001) than the rates predicted fromthe AVMA-recommended formula, but at 56.8%, the aggregate pet-keeping rate was exactly the same as that calculated by the AVMA. The findings reveal community-level variability in pet-keeping rates that must be accounted for when assessing pet service, emergency planning, and animal welfare programming needs.

KEYWORDS:

• Pet ownership
• urban
• rural
• one health
• underrepresented populations

Acknowledgments

We thank Julie Wolf for her statistical consultation and the Community-Based Research Assistants, Timothy Jackson, Jyoni Shuler, Angela Darbyson, Natalie Sorden, Gina Thompson, and Ariel Medina, who collected the survey data. The study was generously funded by Maddie’s Fund and WaterShed Animal Fund of the Arnall Family Foundation.

Notes

1. The University of Denver uses the Research Electronic Data Capture (REDCap) system.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Maddie’s Fund [37613]; Arnall Family Foundation [37685].