Pet Ownership Statistics

There are an estimated 33 million pets in Australia.

While Australia’s levels of pet ownership have remained relatively static in recent years, the ACAC Report (7th Edition) shows that they now stand at 3.41 million dogs, or 36% of households owning a dog; and 2.35 million cats, or 23% of households owning a cat. In addition, there are approximately 18.4 million fish, 8.1 million birds and over 1 million other pets including horses, rabbits, guinea pigs and other small animals.

With just over 8 million households, Australia has one of the highest incidences of pet ownership in the world. However, Australia’s pet ownership is significantly behind the US where 40% of households own a dog and 33% own a cat.

Despite all the known benefits of owning a pet, data collected over the last ten years tells us that the dog population has peaked and is now slowly declining. The good news is that the cat population has slightly increased since the 6th Edition ACAC report.