Saturday, May 14, 2011

American Canine Demographics


As I noted in an earlier post, there are approximately 75 million dogs in the U.S. 

Every year about 7 million new dogs are acquired in the U.S. to replace those that die from disease, old age or accident.

Of these 7 million new dogs, approximately 53 percent are crossbreeds or mongrels, and approximately 47 percent are "pure breeds".

More than half of all U.S. dogs are mixed breeds.

To put a number on it, that works out to be approximately 3,710,000 dogs of mixed ancestry, and approximately 3,290,000 dogs that are pure breeds.

In 2006, to pick a year, the American Kennel Club registered 870,192 pure bred dogs. To put it another way, AKC registrations represented about 26 percent of pure bred dogs and about 12 percent of all dogs acquired that year.  Since 2006, AKC registrations have continued to decline dramatically, and it's reported they are now under 500,000.  Since 2006, the AKC has not, so far as I can tell, published counts by breed.


About a quarter of pure breed dogs are AKC-registered

Of the 870,192 pure bred dogs registered by the AKC in 2006, the top 10 breeds represented 51.7 percent of all dogs registered (449,689 dogs), while the bottom 50 breeds represented less than 1.2 percent of all dogs registered (9,868 dogs)


More than half of all AKC dogs are in the top 10 breeds.
The bottom 50 breeds sum to 1.2 percent of AKC-registered dogs.

Top Ten Breeds in 2006
  1. Retrievers (Labrador) 123,760
  2. Yorkshire Terriers 48,346
  3. German Shepherd Dogs 43,575
  4. Retrievers (Golden) 42,962
  5. Beagles 39,484
  6. Dachshunds 36,033
  7. Boxers 35,388
  8. Poodles 29,939
  9. Shih Tzu 27,282
  10. Miniature Schnauzers 22,920

3 comments:

grapfhics said...

Here are the akc top breed listings for 2009 & 2010.
http://www.akc.org/reg/dogreg_stats.cfm

PBurns said...

Yes, since 2006 they have continued to give the rankings (#1, #2, #3) but not the actual count. If you ask for the count for a particular breed (such as Border Collie), both the AKC and the clubs seem to be treating this as secret information -- a sign of how fast the decline has actually been. AKC registrtion decline is actually getting faster, and is now around 4% a year (a halving time of about 17 years).

P

Sarah said...

I have been doing some research, nothing to do with the demise of the AKC, but compiling information for some research I am doing on the number of dogs in the US of a particular breed. Unfortunately, I cannot find the imformation I need because the AKC has stopped publishing these statistics. The information is still compiled and is available to parent clubs and local club delegates, but since I am only a local all breed club member, I cannot garner access...

Just FYI, here is an exerpt from an email I recieved from the AKC:

The AKC no longer publishes its annual registration statistics. Each
year, AKC sends parent clubs the registration statistics of their breed
for educational and health research purposes. In addition, AKC Delegates
have access to the All-Breed list for their club's educational purposes.
Please feel free to contact your club should you need the statistics for
these purposes. However, you may find the rankings of the breeds, found
on our website helpful http://www.akc.org/reg/dogreg_stats.cfm Thanks.