How many pet owners adopt their pets?

A survey of Australian, American and Canadian pet owners

How many people adopt or rescue a pet?

Over a third of owners surveyed said they adopted their pets, and this was highest in America. Almost 40% of American pets in our survey were adopted (39.7%), compared to 36.2% in Australia and 34.8% in Canada. This includes rescue groups, animal adoption centres, city council pounds and stray animals.

For American and Canadian pet owners, friends and family (which could also count as an adoption depending on the context) were the next top source of getting a new pet, followed by pet stores. In Australia, registered breeders were the second-most popular source (20.4%), closely followed by friends and family (19.4%).

The table below shows the ways pet owners have acquired their pets.

What do people look for when buying a pet?

All pets are different, but there are specific traits and characteristics people will look for when they buy a new pet. In our survey, the most important characteristics were temperament, followed by size. This was true across all countries surveyed and accounted for roughly 50% or more pet owners.

Other important factors include the animal’s breed and whether the pet’s hypoallergenic or sheds.

Are rescue pets as well behaved as pet store and breeder pets?

There were some differences in each country when breaking down pet behaviour by the place the pet came from.

For example, in Australia pet shop pets were the most extremely well behaved (37.4%), while 25.6% of rescue pets were extremely well behaved. However, only 17.5% of pets from a registered breeder were classified as extremely well behaved by their owners.

In the USA it was a similar story, with more pet shop pets being classed extremely well behaved than rescue pets (41.4% to 31.8%), but more rescue pets were mostly well behaved than animals from a pet shop (52.5% to 34.2%). Interestingly, 53.8% of American pets that were a surprise gift were classed as extremely well behaved, which was quite different to the results in Australia and Canada.

In Canada, rescue pets and pet shop animals were equally extremely well behaved (41.6%), while pets from Facebook Marketplace or received as a surprise gift were the most likely to be mostly well behaved (56.6% and 53.3% respectively).

Pets as a surprise gift may not be the best idea

While it might be nice to receive a pet as a surprise gift, it might give you more than you bargained for. There was a clear trend across each country surveyed were pets received as a surprise gift were much more likely to be not very well behaved than other pets.

In Australia, surprise gift pets were over 10% more likely to be not very well behaved, while in Canada surprise gift pets were more than 12% more likely to be very badly behaved, and more than 4% more likely to be not very well behaved.

America had the smallest difference between pets received as a surprise gift or other means when it came to bad behaviour. Surprise pets were under 2% more likely to be not very well behaved in comparison to other animals.

Are cats better behaved than dogs?

In Australia and Canada, cats were more likely to be extremely well behaved than dogs (30.0% vs 26.1% in Australia and 37.4% vs 35.2% in Canada), with dogs more likely to be mostly well behaved (54.5% vs 51.2% in Australia and 49.6% vs 46.1% in Canada).

It was the opposite in America, where dogs were more extremely well behaved than cats (38.4% vs 31.5%), and cats being more mostly well behaved than dogs (49.5% vs 40.9%).

However, across all three countries, cats were slightly more likely to be badly behaved than dogs, though only by a slim percentage difference.