Alexandria Hoggan

Final Project; Homeless Pet Statistics

About every house you go in has a pet right? Most likely you had a dog or cat
while growing up? So why is it if so many people have pets we see so many on the streets? In
this project I am analyzing homeless pet statistics. I will be looking at multiple things such as
How many homeless pets are in America? How many are cats or dogs? Are any of those
homeless pets suffering from animal abuse or malnutrition? While those questions sound very
unfortunate it is a real life crisis we are dealing with and is only going to get worse in the future.
During the process of gathering the data for this project I decided to reach out to the Humane
Society to dig a little deeper into my project. I wanted to have more of a realistic experience as I
felt it would help me write a better paper. Also asking someone who works first hand with these
issues each day would be educated on this and provide a different experience than the internet
would of gave me.
This topic was an easy choice for me, when I saw it listed in the suggested list for topics I
knew I had to have it. I am someone who cares very much about animals and is a pet owner
myself who would like to make a difference. Thats the main reason I chose this topic was
hopefully to learn statistics and then be able to apply them to my life and eventually end up
making a difference for the lives of these pets. Also being able to work with a topic that interests
you helps immensely when writing papers such as this one. Collecting the data was something I
was intrigued about and was eager to learn. Also some of my favorite chapters in the book and to
learn about in class were statistics and exponential growth, I thought they were easy and actually
applied to real life situations. When usually math is seen as something that is not needed for real
life.

Alexandria Hoggan

Since I already know a little bit about shelter pets and abusive situations animals have to
endure I wanted to challenge myself with my hypothesis and wanted something I wasnt really
sure about. I was curious about how many actual homeless pets are there? My guess is probably
somewhere around 2 million. With the knowledge I already had I knew there would be more cats
than dogs in this number because, of how many liters cats are able to have compared to dogs. I
would like to know specifically the numbers and I would like to learn more about cat
overpopulation since, we learned about population growth in class I think I would be able to
have a better understanding. My overall hypothesis would be; there are about 2 million homeless
pets each year, and more of those pets would be cats. I would think bigger dogs are more likely
to be in shelters or homeless because, smaller dogs are more desired and usually more expensive.
While approaching this topic like I stated before I already had some previous knowledge
so I wanted to challenge myself in this area. I wanted to learn more than the basic facts I was
already aware of. I knew going into this it was going to be an emotional experience for me as, I
would hope most people dont like hearing about animals who dont have a home. Especially
people who own pets themselves. I just had to think about the fact, that I wanted to make a
difference and knowing these facts would help me do so. At first I thought going to a pound
would give me the best results but, they werent so helpful. Im not really quite sure why, they
didnt know specifics so then I decided to try the Humane Society hoping to get some answers.
They knew many answers to my questions I had, and even told me to look at their website for
more information which was helpful as well.
From the multiple sources I used I learned about 7 million homeless pets enter animal
shelters each year. Which was a much higher number than I predicted, it almost was
unbelievable. Since there are about 7 million picked up each year that means 146, 153 animals

Alexandria Hoggan

are picked up weekly and 20, 821 per day. Just looking at cats and dogs its about 54%
(4,104,000) cats and 46% (3,496,000) dogs. Which I predicted earlier in my hypothesis. Many
are picked up from animal control or by the pound not by their owners.
Only about 20 to 30 percent of homeless cats and dogs are adopted from shelters. 50% of
dogs will never be picked up from shelters or they will be euthanized and about 70% for cats. We
could decrease these statistics by a large amount if people kept their pets inside/ in a gated area.
The ASPCA reported only about 37% of homes have the right gating area for their pet. Many
people dont realize having a gate could save your pets life. Making sure you know how tall or
wide your gate needs to be for your pet is important.
Cats are constantly being picked up a lot more than any other pet why? It is because of
the overpopulation of them. There are so many cats that people only know somewhat of an
estimate of number. The number is around 70 million in the United States. I was aware that cats
were overpopulated but not, to the extent that it is. It is growing at an extreme exponential rate
because, fertile cats usually have one to two liters per year producing about four kittens per litter
which takes them about 8 months. In my oral presentation I will be showing a graph showing
how fast this actually happens.
If you were to apply the same doubling rate to humans in Utah using the current
population of 3 million that means in 8 months there would be 6 million and in 16 months 12
million and after two years it would about 24 million. Thats an 800% increase in just 2 years.
Thinking about it in a perspective such as that really makes you think about how bad the
overpopulation of cats truly is.

Alexandria Hoggan

Another reason the homeless pet statistics are so high is about 75% of homeless pets have
not been spayed/ neutered. When you spay or neuter your pet it makes them infertile and they
can no longer reproduce. If more pets were spayed or neutered we wouldnt have so many pets
without homes and we would have much more room for them in the shelters. And if we have less
pets in the shelters less would be getting euthanized. Overall it could be a very easy fix if
everyone started spaying and neutering their pets or at least keeping them inside and being
aware.
As there is no specific breed for euthanizing cats for dogs there are breeds who are more
likely to be killed or homeless. Pitbulls make up about 93% of the dogs that are in that group.
Which was not surprising to me when I got told these facts as Pitbulls have a very negative
stereotype which is not desired by many families. And many of them that are picked up have
been malnourished and/ or abused. The females have usually been used for breeding only and
have been left outside left to die only wanted for the puppies being provided. While the males are
used in fighting mostly so they have aggressive behavior and most likely have been abused.
Some of the outcomes I have calculated from the data I received is that having
homeless pets is an ongoing epidemic in America and needs to be changed. Also the statistics
could be changed with just some easy fixes and being responsible. Us as humans are mostly
responsible for the high rates of homeless pets, so it should be us who makes a drastic change.
Like is said previously having a gate is very recommend and also getting your cat
spayed/neutered. I also asked someone from the Human Society and they said adopting from
shelters would help immensely. People would less likely be overbreeding their pets if more
people were getting them from shelters or rescue centers.

Alexandria Hoggan

For the most part my hypothesis was correct and my thoughts about this project were
about what I thought it would be. The things that surprised me the most were definitely the
overpopulation of cats, and how much of an issue it is. There are major organizations and even
shelters who are specified to this issue. So I thought that was interesting to learn. I have found
the homeless pet rate per year is about 7.1 million, and more of them are cats than dogs. If more
pets were fixed the homeless pet statistics would decrease and also the living conditions of the
pet. Mostly its about humans being responsible and taking care of their pets. I am happy I chose
this as my project and I hope with the statistics I provided it gives you an overall better sense of
my project and why its happening.

Alexandria Hoggan

Bibliography
Humane Society of Utah. UT
ASPCA. (2015) Shelter intake and Surrender.
Bissel Pet Foundation (2012) MI