If you’ve been considering bringing home a furry companion, be sure to keep reading. Stacker compiled a list of dogs available for adoption in Richmond, Virginia on Petfinder, ranging in age, breed composition, temperament, and needs. Be sure to do due diligence on breed research to see what kind of dog will be the best fit for your lifestyle. In exploring the history of animal shelters and rescue organizations in the country, nothing proves as problematic as the lack of a centralized reporting system to collect data on these organizations.
Most of the shelter statistics that are available and accepted today are estimates based on several period surveys, including the aforementioned APPA National Pet Owners Survey along with the AVMA U.S. Pet Ownership & Demographics Sourcebook. Without a nationally codified and streamlined process for collecting, organizing, and reporting on shelter data, there has been a grave lack of transparency around the country’s shelters. That makes it difficult not only to pinpoint accurate statistics regarding sheltered animals in America but also to understand the true state of animal welfare in the country, which is the first step to improving that welfare. When looking at the makeup of American families today, it’s rare to see a home where a pet isn’t part of the family. According to the most recent data from the APPA National Pet Owners Survey, 67% of households, or around 85 million homes, own a pet.
Of these households, dogs and cats top the list of most popular pets, with 63.4 million and 42.7 million households owning dogs and cats, respectively. Stacker distribution partners receive a license to all Stacker stories, as well as image rights, data visualizations, forward planning tools, and more. If your organization is interested in becoming a Stacker distribution partner, email us at. Stacker believes in making the world’s data more accessible through storytelling. To that end, most Stacker stories are freely available to republish under a Creative Commons License, and we encourage you to share our stories with your audience. Stacker offers its articles as-is and as-available, and makes no representations or warranties of any kind.