WellBeing News
Abstract
Data on dog numbers and dog well-being will be an important part of evaluating impact of different approaches to dog and human well-being in particular communities. The world currently has somewhere between 800 million and one billion domestic dogs. As such, they are the most common canid on the planet by at least two orders of magnitude (100-fold). Dogs are the earliest animal to have been domesticated and they have achieved their evolutionary success by hitching their wagon to humans. Recent research indicates that the domestic dog is particularly good at attending to and interpreting human expressions and emotions. Of the dogs in the world today, approximately 60% share human homes (mostly pets with varying degrees of attachment to their human families) while the remaining 40% live in human communities but on the street. There are very few dogs that survive and reproduce successfully away from humans.
Recommended Citation
Rowan, Andrew N.
(2020)
"Counting Dogs,"
WellBeing News: Vol. 2:
Iss.
9, Article 2.
Available at:
https://www.wellbeingintlstudiesrepository.org/wbn/vol2/iss9/2