Pet Demographics – Trends & Possible Truths ... - by Robert M. Thorson

Pet Demographics – Trends & Possible Truths

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“Connecticut’s Not Going For The Dogs”

By Robert M. Thorson * - The Hartford Courant / Opinion (7/24/2013)

Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one in the world who doesn't own a dog. So let me set the record straight. I'm normal.

According to the best data available, Connecticut ranks 49th out of 50 states in terms of dog ownership, with only 28.3 percent of households owning a dog in 2011. And the trend is down. In 2006, the last year comparable data were available, our state ranked higher, at 47th with an ownership rate of 28.9 percent.

These facts and quotes come from a recent compendium titled "U.S. Pet Ownership & Demographics Sourcebook (2012)," published by the American Veterinary Medical Association to ensure best practices. Founded in 1863, the association represents more than 84,000 veterinarians and acts as a "collective voice for its membership and for the profession." The report was based on a survey of more than 50,000 U.S. households.

In no state does a majority of households own a dog, not even top-ranked Arkansas with 47.9 percent. Ranking dead last among states is Massachusetts, with only 23.6 percent of households owning dogs. The District of Columbia is even lower, with only 13.1 percent of households owning a dog.

Being curious about these numbers, I compared the statistics for dog ownership to the statistics for educational attainment reported by the U.S. Census Bureau. I discovered that Arkansas ranks dead last in terms of educational attainment when measured by the percentage of population with a graduate degree. Only 6.1 percent met the criteria in 2009, the last year for which I could find data. The top-ranked state was Massachusetts, with 16.4 percent. In the District of Columbia, a whopping 28.0 percent of the population had an advanced degree.

These, of course, are statewide averages. There are plenty of dog-owning professionals in the most rural parts of Arkansas, and plenty of non-dog-owning high school dropouts walking the urbanized banks of the Charles River by Harvard and MIT in Cambridge, Mass.

Nevertheless, the correlation between dog ownership and lack of advanced degrees is nearly perfect. Of course everyone knows that correlation and causality are not the same. Darkness doesn't cause sleep any more than dog ownership limits your education, and vice versa. Not being a statistician, social scientist, veterinarian or pet owner, and not wishing to infuriate my readers, I'll disqualify myself from attempting the obvious explanation.

Cats are even more popular than dogs. In top-ranked Vermont, 49.5 percent households own one or more. Dead last is Utah at 24.6 percent. Utah, of course, is a red state: Republican across the board, based on voter registration, the 2012 presidential election, the present governor, the majority of the upper and lower houses, the senior and junior U.S. senators, and the U.S. House delegation. Vermont is a blue state: Democratic across the board, except for Bernie Sanders, the nation's only independent socialist senator.

As before, correlation and causality are not the same. But I can't help speculating that if the cats could vote, we would all be living in a socialist country. And if dogs could vote, they would abolish student loans for graduate school. What does this say about households with both cats and dogs?

The notion of dogs and cats voting isn't that far-fetched because most pets are adults, and more than six out of 10 pet owners "considered their pets to be family members." This fact, reported by the AMVA on the website devoted to the sourcebook, raises the disarming conclusion that these owners must also believe that it's OK to buy and sell members of their family. I see no way around this logic. Do the math. If A=B and B=C, then A=C.

Some owners must also feel OK about lending their family members to help strangers. Consider the now-popular University of Connecticut library program that lends 20 to 25 "stress dogs" to students during final exams week each semester to help relieve their anxiety. This clearly works for some human students. But at what ethical cost to the other species?

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* Robert M. Thorson is a professor of geology at the University of Connecticut's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. His column appears in The Courant every other Thursday.