I love my cats. They are so cute and they are very important part of my life. I cannot imagine living without those cats. I will be really really sad when they pass away some day in the future. I don’t want to think about it now, I want to enjoy all the time that I can spend with them.

When I was living in Japan, I sometimes saw the dogs and cats in a street and they seemed abandoned by somebody. Sadly those abandoned dogs and cats would be most likely killed if they got caught by a government organization such as animal shelters in Japan. The function of sheltering is very different between the US and Japan.

Here in the US, the chance of seeing abandoned dogs or cats seems less to me. I always have had an image that American people take better care of pets than Japanese people do and are less likely to abandon their pets. Even if pets were abandoned by their owners once and sent to shelters, they seemed to tend to find some other new owner later.

Today I would like to analyze briefly if my impression is correct or not by looking at the percentage of pet dogs or cats put to death at shelters both in the US and Japan.

The number of dogs and cats killed at shelters in the US and Japan

・There are about estimated 3 million dogs and cats killed at shelters in the US every year while it’s about 56,000 dogs and cats killed in Japan in 2016.

The table above shows dogs and cats put to death at shelters in the US and Japan. Please see the numbers in red in the table.

According to the Humane Society of the United States, there are about estimated 3 million dogs and cats killed at shelters in the US every year. On the other hand, it’s about 56,000 dogs and cats killed in Japan in 2016.

It’s sad that there are still so many dogs and cats killed at shelters. The population of the two countries is one of the major considerations when comparing the numbers of pets in my analysis. The US has about 126 million households while Japan has about 56 million. The number of pets is much more in the US than Japan as it’s shown in the table.

When you compare the total number of pets with the number of dogs and cats put to death at shelters, the US is 2% while Japan is 0.3%. The proportion is much more in the US contrary to my expectations.

There is no statistics for the actual number of dogs and cats killed in animal shelters in the US

・In Japan, Ministry of the Environment records the number of dogs and cats killed in animal shelters. A particular problem that I came across in my research is that there are only estimates available as to the number of cats and dogs killed each year in the United States.

According to my research there is currently no American government institution or animal organization responsible for recording national statistics for animal protection. When I was searching the statistics of dogs and cats euthanized at shelters, I was surprised to find out that there was no American government institution that manages those statistics.

This makes me think that my image may be totally wrong, namely, my image that American takes better care of pets and does not abandon more pets than Japanese could be wrong. Without having accurate statistics, there is no way to understand the current situation about how many dogs and cats are killed or about how people treat pets.

After reading many sources for data, I pulled out information from sources I believed to be the most credible. I used some estimated numbers from several sources such as the Humane Society of the United States, Shelter Animals Count, Ministry of the Environment in Japan, Japan Pet Food Association, etc. Please see the source shown under the table or figure for more information about reference.

Shelter Animals Count to create national database

・Shelter Animals Count is working to create national database for sheltered animals in order to save more animals.

I was impressed by the effort of Shelter Animals Count !

I think it’s necessary to have as accurate information as possible so as to find out the problem and make a solution for any matter.

Shelter Animals Count collected the data of euthanized dogs and cats from 2,861 organizations in the US in 2017. Although 2,861 organizations are still not enough to cover the whole nation, about 15% of dogs and cats that were euthanized after they were taken to shelters in 2017.

As many as 462,000 dogs and cats were euthanized in 2017, but the 15% is much less than the 43% in the table of Dogs and Cats Put to Death at Shelters in the US and Japan. The 43% may not be reflecting the truth. I hope that Shelter Animal Counts will keep expanding its data source to understand the current situation in all over the US and save more animals.

Has Japan been successful in reducing the number of dogs and cats put to death at shelters ?

・Dogs and cats put to death at shelters in Japan has been decreasing over the last 20 years. However, there are still 56,000 dogs and cats that were killed in 2016.

The figure above shows the number of dogs and cats put to death in Japan from 1974 to 2016. You can see the numbers are decreasing over time. Now many municipal governments in Japan, including Tokyo, are trying to make the number zero in the future.

According to The Japan Times, “During the gubernatorial election in July, now-Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike pledged to reduce the number of culled dogs and cats in the capital to zero.

As the host city for the Olympic Games in 2020, Koike said she didn’t want to tarnish Tokyo’s image by being labeled a pet-culling city. And she vowed to make progress on the policy before the games when she spoke at the Animal Welfare Summit 2016 in August in Tokyo soon after she took office.”

I hope Japan will have no dogs and cats killed at shelters soon in the future.

Please do not abandon pets !





