In North America the stats have been run on where people get their pets from. Here they are from Christie Kieth - Pet Connection Blog.

Pet Connection Blog » Hate, fear and the politics of puppy-mills

23.5 million people plan to get a pet in the next year. Something less than half those want dogs, so let’s call it 10 million.

12 percent will get those dogs from shelters and rescue groups, lowering our number to around 8 million who will get a dog from somewhere other than a shelter or rescue group in the next year.

The shelter community is also working very aggressively right now to increase their market share, so let’s, for the sake of argument, say that they will succeed, so in a few years, the total of new pets acquired through some form of rehoming — shelters, rescue groups, between friends, family members, neighbors, and classified ads, will be 30 percent. I think it will be more, but let’s use that number.

http://isaronline.blogspot.com/2008/...opulation.html

Based on the number of existing households with pets, who have a pet die or run away . . . more than twice as many homes potentially become available each year for dogs than the number of dogs who enter shelters . . . If shelters increased their market share by just a few percentage points, we could be a no kill nation right now.

Nathan Winograd has some interesting statistics as well.

Debunking Pet Overpopulation : Nathan J Winograd

Does anybody in the UK know the numbers?

How many people acquire dogs each year?
How many people will get them from rescue?
How many adoptable dogs are offered from rescue each year?

Those numbers would be interesting to read.

im sure this question has been asked many times before.

I wish we did have those figures, unfortunately the information is so scattered, that no one organization has managed to accurately even estimate

Sorry I didn't realise you were so easily offended. Its just my opinion. Yes people should breed responsibly, but your question was "Do you think we should be breeding at all?" - If we didn't breed at all, dogs would be extinct.

yes i realise that, but with the current climate, is it right to breed dogs left, right and centre?

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No, but thats not what you asked.

There are approximately 7 million dogs in the UK (extrapolated from PFMA estimates). Assuming an average lifespan of 14 years would indicate that approximately 500,000 new dogs enter the population each year.


No idea.

I've heard an estimate of 100,000 dogs in shelters at any one time. Don't know what that's based on though.

Sure would. Some other interesting figures include the Dogs Trust's Annual Stray Report 2009 which estimates 107,228 dogs collected as stray and 9,310 of those that are destroyed (8.7%) but one should remember that this real tip-of-the-iceberg stuff. It doesn't include private euthanisiations by owners, or by charities, or the overspill from the greyhound racing industry. Many London councils report low or zero numbers put-to-sleep because they send their dogs to Battersea Dogs Home who do it for them. In 2008 Battersea took in around 9,000 dogs and rehomed 3,000. Battersea's website doesn't record what happened to the remaining 66%.

Thanks John for what you found.

Was reading the blog line-up this morning, and just came across these UK numbers from ColdWetNose. I don't know the source, but Beverly usually does source. Of course these would not include those euthanized outside of the shelter system - the greyhound racing world etc.

"There's definitely a problem on several levels. There's an over production problem with 100,000 dogs in rescue kennels each year and 10,000 unwanted dogs put to sleep each year."

. . . and apparently the APGAW report talks about 8 million dogs in "this country". I don't know if that is just Britain, or if it includes the UK.

To compare, in the USA, shelters see approx. 8 million animals a year (a high estimate) and approx. 3 - 4 million would be dogs. The estimated USA canine population is 60-70 million.

My math says 1.25% of owned UK dogs enter rescue kennels each year, and to compare, approx. 5.4% of owned American dogs enter rescue kennels each year.

My maths could easily not be right as UK estimates seem to be so rough but just trying to get some perspective of the UK problem.

I really think it is important, in order to tackle the problem in the UK, for there to be at least an idea of what percentage of households need to adopt from shelters in order to diminish shelter killings.

CC

I think people should have a license to breed dogs, and they should have a limit on the number of dogs they can breed.
I think it should be the law that everyone without this license neuters their dogs.