Our most beloved friends!

Leading pets, ranked by household ownership in the United Kingdom (UK) in 2017/18

	Share of pet owning households
Any pet	45%
Dogs	26%
Cats	18%
Rabbits	2%

That Brits love their pets is a well-known fact but while playing with my well beloved kitten some days ago I started thinking about other people’s furry friends and I grew so curious that I started googling for information. You can see below the result of my search.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/308218/leading-ten-pets-ranked-by-household-ownership-in-the-united-kingdom-uk/

 

Almost 50 per cent of British families own a pet and there are about 7.7 million cats and 6.6 million dogs in the UK. The nation’s living rooms are home to a million budgerigars and about 18 million goldfish. And don’t forget the armies of hamsters, gerbils, rabbits, mice, rats, weasels and stoats out there. It has even been suggested that the Brits are more attached to their pets than their children, but that can’t be true. Can it?

I suspect the British form deep relationships with their pets because they’re much easier to talk to than other people. Particularly British people. A Labrador is not at all reserved and does not expect you to respect his or her personal space. He will not recoil in horror if you touch him on the shoulder or shout at him. In a country where human contact is not always easy, the unconditional love of a Burmese cat or a Highland terrier is valued deeply.

When a dog owner gets on a train everyone feels relieved because they’ve finally got something to look at and talk about. There are hundreds of dog breeds in the UK, so you can demonstrate your superior knowledge by telling a Soft Coated Wheaten Terrier from a Bedlington. “How lovely. How long have you had him?” is a perfect ice-breaker when meeting a stranger. Who knows: when two Brits both pat a dog they might even touch!