AKC Registrations Up, But Still Down

AKC registrations are significantly higher than they were eight years ago, when they hovered at just over 500,000. Today, AKC registrations have risen to just over 800,000. That’s the “good” news. The “bad” news is that AKC registration are still only a little but better than *half* what they were in 1992 (1.53 million). When you factor in the 30 percent US population growth between 1992 and 2002 (257 million to 334 million), we find the relative decline in AKC registrations in the last 30 years is actually about 60 percent. To put it another way, if AKC registrations had flat-lined in 1992 and kept pace with US population growth, they would be 1,988,000 a year, not 800,000.