Dogs are considered as the man’s best friend as it was the first species ever to be domesticated by man. Most of the families indeed keep dogs as a pet; still, the majority of the dogs all around the world are free. According to the world’s dog population study, there were 525 million dogs in 2012, which have now crossed the line over 900 million.
Counting the precise number of stay dogs of the world is quite a challenging task, but still, here is an approximate count of the free-ranging dogs and domesticated dogs across the globe.
- The approximate global population of free-range dogs
Free-range dogs can either be stray dogs, wild dogs, federal dogs, village dogs, or street dogs. Stray dogs are the dogs that were once socialized, but later free-ranging on the other hand, the federal dogs are the dogs who are not raised by humans. According to WHO, the estimated count of stray dogs is around 200 million, and the entire population of free-range dogs is approximately 75-80% of the dog population of the globe.
- The total population of the pet dogs across the globe
The ways of the patterns of dog ownership vary from place to place or country to country around the world. And it is easier to find out the total number of pet dogs as compared to that of the entire population of the dogs. It is mostly because each dog gets adopted only after proper registration.
In South America
According to the stats, the number of pet dogs in South America is quite less. It is mostly because most of the dogs are unregistered. Brazil has the highest population of pet dogs, which is estimated to be more than 30 million. Whereas the population of pet dogs in Argentina is approximately more than 6.5 million, and that of Columbia is about 5 million.
In North America
In the United States, more than 42.5 million families have ownership of either one or more dogs, which in total would be over 73 million. In contrast, the population of pet dogs in Canada is more than 6 million.
In Europe
The population of pet dogs in the United Kingdom is about 6.8 million. Western Europe has about 43 million pet dogs. France has estimated to have approximately 8.8 million pet dogs. In Italy and Poland, there is about 7.5 million population of pet dogs. Ukraine has about 5.1 million pet dogs. Lastly, Russia has the highest number of pet dogs in the entire Europe, which is 12 million.
In Asia
It is quite challenging to provide the correct estimate of pet dogs in Asia as there is no registration system in most of the Asian countries. However, China had the highest pet dog population, which is about 110 million. In which Beijing alone has nearly 1 million pet dogs. Japan has an approximate 9.5 million population of pet dogs. India has about 32 million population of pet dogs and 20 million population of stray dogs.
In Australia
The population of pet dogs in Australia is as limited as in South America. There are around 4 million pet dogs and 2 million stray dogs in Australia.
In Africa
According to the statistics, the number of pet dogs in South Africa is approximately 9 million.
While entire Africa has estimated to have about 78 million pet dogs and more than 70 million stray dogs.