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National Dog Survey: Describing UK Dog and Ownership Demographics

SIMPLE SUMMARY: Dog ownership is common in the United Kingdom; however, current dog ownership demography data are lacking. Understanding our pet dog population is paramount to meeting the health and welfare needs of the population. Therefore, this paper provides an overview of a National Dog Survey,...

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Autores principales: Anderson, Katharine L., Casey, Rachel A., Cooper, Ben, Upjohn, Melissa M., Christley, Robert M.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10044414/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36978614
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ani13061072
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author Anderson, Katharine L.
Casey, Rachel A.
Cooper, Ben
Upjohn, Melissa M.
Christley, Robert M.
author_facet Anderson, Katharine L.
Casey, Rachel A.
Cooper, Ben
Upjohn, Melissa M.
Christley, Robert M.
author_sort Anderson, Katharine L.
collection PubMed
description SIMPLE SUMMARY: Dog ownership is common in the United Kingdom; however, current dog ownership demography data are lacking. Understanding our pet dog population is paramount to meeting the health and welfare needs of the population. Therefore, this paper provides an overview of a National Dog Survey, aiming to better understand and provide a snapshot of the current dog population in the UK. The results of this paper provide up-to-date demographic data for both dogs and their owners and highlight patterns and trends both long-term and more recently, since the COVID-19 pandemic. Monitoring of trends and patterns of the dog population and dog owners going forward is needed in order to continually identify the needs and welfare state of the population, enabling those working in the canine welfare field to provide appropriate support and services. ABSTRACT: With dogs being the most commonly owned companion animal in the United Kingdom, knowledge about dog demographics is important in understanding the impact of dogs on society. Furthermore, understanding the demography of dog owners is also important to better target support to dogs and their owners to achieve optimal welfare in the canine population. Combining natural fluctuations in the population and unprecedented events such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the need for an up-to-date large-scale dataset is even more paramount. In order to address this, Dogs Trust launched the ‘National Dog Survey’ to provide a large population-level dataset that will help identify key areas of concern and needs of owners and their dogs. The online survey was completed by a total of 354,046 respondents owning dogs in the UK, providing data for 440,423 dogs. The results of this study highlight dog demographics, including acquisition and veterinary factors, as well as owner demographic and household information. Finally, general trends in ownership, and more specifically those following the COVID-19 pandemic, are described. This paper’s findings provide valuable insight into the current population of dogs and their owners in the UK, allowing for the most appropriate products, services, interventions and regulations to be developed, reducing the likelihood of negative welfare outcomes such as health and behaviour issues, relinquishment or euthanasia. Furthermore, with significant changes to the dog population following the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted, this dataset serves as an up-to-date baseline for future study comparisons to continue to monitor trends and patterns of the dog population and dog owners going forwards.
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spelling pubmed-100444142023-03-29 National Dog Survey: Describing UK Dog and Ownership Demographics Anderson, Katharine L. Casey, Rachel A. Cooper, Ben Upjohn, Melissa M. Christley, Robert M. Animals (Basel) Article SIMPLE SUMMARY: Dog ownership is common in the United Kingdom; however, current dog ownership demography data are lacking. Understanding our pet dog population is paramount to meeting the health and welfare needs of the population. Therefore, this paper provides an overview of a National Dog Survey, aiming to better understand and provide a snapshot of the current dog population in the UK. The results of this paper provide up-to-date demographic data for both dogs and their owners and highlight patterns and trends both long-term and more recently, since the COVID-19 pandemic. Monitoring of trends and patterns of the dog population and dog owners going forward is needed in order to continually identify the needs and welfare state of the population, enabling those working in the canine welfare field to provide appropriate support and services. ABSTRACT: With dogs being the most commonly owned companion animal in the United Kingdom, knowledge about dog demographics is important in understanding the impact of dogs on society. Furthermore, understanding the demography of dog owners is also important to better target support to dogs and their owners to achieve optimal welfare in the canine population. Combining natural fluctuations in the population and unprecedented events such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the need for an up-to-date large-scale dataset is even more paramount. In order to address this, Dogs Trust launched the ‘National Dog Survey’ to provide a large population-level dataset that will help identify key areas of concern and needs of owners and their dogs. The online survey was completed by a total of 354,046 respondents owning dogs in the UK, providing data for 440,423 dogs. The results of this study highlight dog demographics, including acquisition and veterinary factors, as well as owner demographic and household information. Finally, general trends in ownership, and more specifically those following the COVID-19 pandemic, are described. This paper’s findings provide valuable insight into the current population of dogs and their owners in the UK, allowing for the most appropriate products, services, interventions and regulations to be developed, reducing the likelihood of negative welfare outcomes such as health and behaviour issues, relinquishment or euthanasia. Furthermore, with significant changes to the dog population following the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted, this dataset serves as an up-to-date baseline for future study comparisons to continue to monitor trends and patterns of the dog population and dog owners going forwards. MDPI 2023-03-16 /pmc/articles/PMC10044414/ /pubmed/36978614 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ani13061072 Text en © 2023 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Anderson, Katharine L.
Casey, Rachel A.
Cooper, Ben
Upjohn, Melissa M.
Christley, Robert M.
National Dog Survey: Describing UK Dog and Ownership Demographics
title National Dog Survey: Describing UK Dog and Ownership Demographics
title_full National Dog Survey: Describing UK Dog and Ownership Demographics
title_fullStr National Dog Survey: Describing UK Dog and Ownership Demographics
title_full_unstemmed National Dog Survey: Describing UK Dog and Ownership Demographics
title_short National Dog Survey: Describing UK Dog and Ownership Demographics
title_sort national dog survey: describing uk dog and ownership demographics
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10044414/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36978614
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ani13061072
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