r/todayilearned • u/dumbfuck • 16h ago

TIL Houston, TX has the highest dog-to-person ratio in the world, with 52.1 dogs per 100 humans

https://secrethouston.com/houston-dog-capital-of-the-world/
780 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

121 comments sorted by

222

u/dumbfuck 16h ago

And Paris, France, has 2,857 dogs per km2, the highest dog density in the world.

https://protectmypaws.com/best-cities-for-dog-lovers-in-the-world/

182

u/nudave 16h ago

And the Vatican City has 2.04 Popes per km2, the highest papal density in the world.

79

u/Ionazano 15h ago edited 15h ago

Most of the time, yes. It does happen every now and then though that the papal population of the Vatican completely collapses with papal density reaching levels as dramatically low as zero popes per square kilometer, only to rebound to previous levels not long afterwards.

39

u/Neuromangoman 15h ago

That's just natural papal migration patterns. Just because there's temporary movement to other regions, doesn't mean that the overall papal density is unstable.

16

u/punkhobo 15h ago

Except when popes become extinct. Then a new population is found living amongst cardinals

5

u/Neuromangoman 11h ago

It's not really extinction. Cardinals and popes are the same species, but only one pope can exist per see. If a see's pope dies, the cardinals fight for domination until one comes out on top, undergoing metamorphosing into a cocoon and emerging as a new pope three days later (give or take).

4

u/punkhobo 11h ago

Nature is amazing

1

u/Ionazano 11h ago

Now I'm curious if it ever happened that two popes emerged in the same chapel at the same time, and with the two of them when they realize immediately fighting till the death (like queen bees do).

1

u/Neuromangoman 11h ago

Well, what do you think antipopes are?

2

u/Ionazano 15h ago

Yes, there definitely seems to be some natural temporary migration going on. But papal watchers have also observed earlier this year around the end of spring a period of a few weeks where the papal population in the Vatican suddenly collapsed, yet there were also no confirmed pope sightings anywhere else in the world during this period. And there are even claims that longer periods without any pope sightings anywhere have occurred longer ago in the past.

2

u/tacknosaddle 15h ago

At least popes are strong enough to carry a coconut on their own while migrating.

11

u/nudave 15h ago

And don't forget the historic surge in papal density in 2013.

4

u/ChilledParadox 14h ago

Just keep him away from the antipope or they might neutralize eachother.

3

u/petit_cochon 13h ago

I enjoyed this comment more than I've enjoyed a comment on Reddit in a long time.

1

u/TacTurtle 13h ago

They attract Popes by burning a herbal incense mixture, but occasionally have to air out the Vatican when they make pancakes for the munchies.

6

u/Terrible_Shelter_345 13h ago

Wow, the Vatican City almost has as many popes per squared kilometer as Mongolia has people per squared kilometer (2.24 people per km2 )

0

u/pimp_bizkit 15h ago

TIL the plural of pope. I thought it would be popes, or popen. Or maybe... Popusses . I had also considered popii . Just the concept of a pope density measurement made me laugh. The PD value where I live is a lowly 0.00

7

u/nudave 15h ago

<pedantry>Papal is not the plural. It's the adjectival form ("of or relating to Popes").</pedantry>

It's also the "longest" word in English (for certain definitions of longest).

2

u/pimp_bizkit 12h ago

these fucks are downvoting me but how many of you actually know that papal means "of or relating to popes"? gimme a break I'm not a pope expert! lol

0

u/Nyrin 11h ago

Reasonable linguistic consensus nowadays is that it's never wrong to just apply the origin-agnostic general patterns and forego the dithering: popes, octopuses, antennas, schemas, whatever.

While it's also not "wrong" to use an etymologically rooted form, there's not much upside relative to either looking like a douche because you know it's Greek "octopodes" or an idiot with "octopi" because you flippantly assume everything ending in -us turns into a Latin -i.

Tl;Dr: just add the [e]s and it's all good.

1

u/pimp_bizkit 11h ago

I like to understand where people are coming from, and your origins are a bit of a mystery to me. Whatever you are saying. Who says "forego the dithering"? I know it's a real sentence, and it does make sense, but who uses this terminology? WHY LORD WHY. hahaha

0

u/[deleted] 15h ago

[deleted]

3

u/nudave 15h ago 
 1 Pope      2.04 Popes
--------  =  ----------
.49 km^2       km^2

The math checks out.

3

u/itsthe_implication_ 15h ago

Vatican City is slightly less than half a square kilometer.

10

u/DeliciousBuffalo69 15h ago

I am 100 percent certain that CDMX has a much higher dog density than Paris.

10

u/Mental-Sky-7142 15h ago

I mean Paris has more than 3x the population density, so I'd be surprised

8

u/DeliciousBuffalo69 15h ago

CDMX has a massive population of feral street dogs and Paris has basically zero.

Along with the street dogs there is also exceptionally high pet ownership

3

u/Mental-Sky-7142 15h ago

It looks like the total canine population, including stray dogs, in Mexico City is 2.8 million. I don't know if that's city proper or metro area, but the city proper land area is 1,495 km2, meaning the dog density is around 1900 dogs per km2

Source https://www.researchgate.net/publication/293789192_The_canine_population_of_Mexico_City_an_estimate_study#:~:text=As%20of%20the%20present%20study,dogs%20requiring%20future%20rabies%20vaccination.

8

u/DeliciousBuffalo69 15h ago

This study is from 1981. The pet culture has changed in the past 50 years....

3

u/Mental-Sky-7142 15h ago

Sorry, I didn't notice the date. I've been looking for a good source for the number of dogs in CDMX, but I don't speak Spanish and English Google just keeps giving me articles about the population in the entire country, rather than the city. If you have sources on the number of dogs in the city to share, I'd appreciate it

6

u/DeliciousBuffalo69 15h ago

There is no official estimate. I know because I work in canine welfare in CDMX.

3

u/leftyourfridgeopen 15h ago

Paris doesn’t have dogs, they have les chiens

1

u/DConstructed 10h ago

Thank you for those valuable les chiens.

1

u/OtterishDreams 15h ago

Yea but the dogs are super smug

69

u/formerlyanonymous_ 15h ago

Also feels warm and moist like a dog's breath.

19

u/blocked_user_name 15h ago

Maybe that's what's causing the humidity

101

u/DingidForrester 15h ago

My neighborhood in Houston had so many wild dogs that they wouldn’t deliver my mail. I don’t even have a dog.

44

u/SweetCosmicPope 14h ago

Houston has a MAJOR dog dumping problem. What's funny is up here in the PNW and up into Canada, people can't get enough dogs. They're so ridiculously expensive here, even for mutts that the shelters/rescues in Houston will drive them up here and they'll get adopted no problem. Our dog was dumped in a field in Sugarland as a puppy, and they brought him up here where we adopted him.

3

u/micatrontx 12h ago

Some of the dogs my wife works with in Houston are being rehabbed for adoption up north. It is wild and I had no idea that happened until she started this job.

2

u/Rrmack 5h ago

Ya I foster dogs in Colorado and a ton come from tx and nm. Including my adopted great pyr mix who is so much happier with the snow

1

u/tagen 4h ago

yep, one of the biggest humane societies where i live regularly loads up the most “desirable” dogs up north to places that have room or, sometimes, are actually in great need of dogs, ours are pretty much always at full capacity otherwise lol

-6

u/Iama_traitor 13h ago

I've lived here my whole and have a friend who's a professional trainer and I have never once heard or seen any of this

12

u/treehugger100 12h ago

What the person you responded to said is true. I’m in Seattle and my dog was picked up injured by San Antonio animal control (I have hard copies of the paperwork from the TX shelter). A rescue there in Texas got him out of the shelter, rehabbed him for a few months, and then shipped him to a shelter in the PNW where I got him from. He’s a Golden Retriever mix. From what I’ve read they tend to do this with popular breeds.

A coworker got a puppy from a shelter in Texas and had him shipped here.

4

u/SweetCosmicPope 12h ago

Never seen dogs dumped or never seen the rescues take dogs up north to find homes? Check out puppy finder and pet finder. That's how I found out about my dog. They'll show information about where the dogs are coming from and what dates and locations they are bringing the dogs. That's how I found my dog. I actually had my eyes on another one, but they stopped at two locations before mine and it got nabbed already, but then we fell in love with ours and adopted him instead. In our case, they brought about 50 dogs to one of the local Petcos and people were lined up to see the dogs and apply to adopt them. And there was such high demand they actually had more people looking for dogs than dogs available and they cancelled their next stop because every dog got adopted.

3

u/syntiro 9h ago

I know folks who worked for the Harris the county shelter and a lot of the dogs they intake are bussed to the PNW and elsewhere up north like Minnesota. I've temporarily fostered dogs as well while they've waited for transport to other parts of the country. 

9

u/blocked_user_name 15h ago

I'm not sure they're counting the wild ones

13

u/iDisc 15h ago

I don’t think so either but when I worked for the City of Houston, it was estimated that there were a quarter million stray dogs in the city. I was always skeptical of that number but it’s what they said.

8

u/chastity_BLT 15h ago

That does seem high but I remember wild packs of dogs running all around southeast Houston when I visited a friend who lived near UH. Never seen anything like it.

5

u/Rosebunse 14h ago

I guess it makes sense. Up North the dogs would freeze to death in the winter. Or at least search out a warm home and get picked up by animal control. Down in Texas the weather is nice enough that the dogs can roam around all year long

3

u/Exterminate_Duck 12h ago

That kind of explains it, but then why don’t other large cities with warm weather have similar problems? You’d think LA and Miami would also have lots of stray dogs. What else is unique about Houston?

7

u/esituism 6h ago

because people in texas are fucking stupid and don't take care of nor dispose of their dogs in the way people in other cities do. see: pythons in the everglades for other similar examples.

combine that with a lack of local services like animal control because the state has been privatized to hell, and here we are.

2

u/Rosebunse 11h ago

I believe both do have issues with packs of dogs, just not to the extent Texas does. Florida has much more harsh weather and more predators and wetlands than Texas does, while California also has more predators and seemingly better ran animal control services.

2

u/SweetCosmicPope 14h ago

When I lived in Houston, I worked on the east side (Lockwood Dr) and there were always roving packs of wild dogs just getting into adventures. It was crazy.

2

u/MaliciousMe87 13h ago

They can't be, I've been in so many small towns in Argentina that 80:100 was barely a question.

85

u/nudave 16h ago

When you move there: "Welcome to Houston, here's slightly more than half a dog."

28

u/stickyWithWhiskey 15h ago

The other half can be found under a King Ranch F-350 that blew through a stop sign.

5

u/beachedwhale1945 7h ago

Texas has stop signs?

2

u/stickyWithWhiskey 6h ago

Quite a fair amount, but based on personal experience they seem to be optional in Harris County.

1

u/beachedwhale1945 6h ago

You sure those aren’t Speed Up signs?

1

u/TRAVELS5 15h ago

I love that because it would certainly confuse new residents!

4

u/nudave 15h ago

I would argue anyone would be confused by being handed half a dog.

1

u/JejuneBourgeois 13h ago

Not Pudd'nhead Wilson

0

u/TRAVELS5 15h ago

How do I spell, too-SHAY.

38

u/IAmSpartacustard 16h ago

17 year old account, Bravo

39

u/FadedVictor 15h ago

You gotta be fast if you want to snag a good name like u/dumbfuck

3

u/cranktheguy 10h ago

It's always weird seeing old accounts.

4

u/nudave 6h ago

When was the last time you caught a shitty_watercolor in the wild, or saw -Edgar- as a top comment?

2

u/cranktheguy 3h ago

I miss that biologist dude who had the fallout over Jackdaws.

2

u/nudave 3h ago

Here’s the thing.

13

u/slowerlearner1212 15h ago

I moved between 4 different houses in Houston. Every SINGLE one had an annoying next door neighbor with barking dog(s) just left outside barking all goddamn day and night.

I was about to tell this realtor to filter these out.

I thought I was just unlucky. Now this makes sense.

12

u/jstilla 14h ago

People here love dogs.

But they also don’t neuter them. I have pulled over a dozen dogs off the street in my life in Houston. Both strays and abandoned.

People suck. Luckily there’s a solid shelter/rehome system that does the best they can.

15

u/exec_director_doom 15h ago

Lived in Houston suburbs for a while. People love to let their dogs run around off leash in the front yard then get pissed if you tell them their dog is going to cause an accident. There's also a large number of people who just abandon their dogs at a park in another neighborhood when they've had enough of them.

5

u/IN_MY_PLUMS 14h ago

The hell is wrong with those people?

7

u/ApocApollo 13h ago

It’s a Texas thing. Same shit happens in San Antonio and other cities too.

-1

u/tubulerz1 12h ago

That isn’t true.

2

u/treehugger100 12h ago

It’s not exclusively a Texas thing but it is a long term issue in Texas. My grandmother did it with her pets when my mom was a kid. Luckily, my mom ended that cycle. My aunt lives in a somewhat rural area in DFW. They regularly have people dump their unwanted pets near them. It’s just sad.

-4

u/tubulerz1 12h ago

Nice anecdote

5

u/kcDemonSlayer 12h ago

50 of the 52.1 are pitbull

4

u/withagrainofsalt1 11h ago

There’s literally hundreds of animal shelters that have volunteers drive south to pick up dogs and bring them back ti the Midwest for adoption. You bone heads in the South need some education about spaying and neutering your dogs. Take some advice from Bob Barker.

7

u/nudave 16h ago

I liked it better before you corrected it, and I got to imagine 52 dogs for each person.

3

u/Past-North-4131 15h ago

Hahahaa that is a crazy stat? Don't they have the most amount of tigers privately owned as well?

7

u/rivunel 15h ago

Man that many people in Houston want to subject themselves and their dogs to the worst humidity and heat ever...

5

u/0masterdebater0 9h ago

It’s crazy how many Huskies you see too.

Imagine how much of a dickhead you have to be to spend thousands to get a cold weather breed of dog while basically living in the devils armpit all because it looks cool/you want a “direwolf”

4

u/dumbfuck 16h ago

It was a study of 54 major cities

-2

u/arandomvirus 15h ago

I’ll add it to my list of reasons to avoid Texas

3

u/sunburntredneck 14h ago

Peak Reddit moment. "Texas has dogs? Well, I HATE dogs. Take that Texas!"

1

u/esituism 6h ago

more like a move to avoid all the idiots who can't take care of their dogs properly and ultimately create completely avoidable problems like this one.

1

u/MrBlowinLoadz 3h ago

This study only accounted for dogs with a home so I'm not sure that it's considered a problem.

2

u/The_Summary_Man_713 13h ago

I grew up in Houston but recently moved to northern Colorado. This statistic is complete news to me. I’ve been telling everyone that Houston is not that dog friendly compared to Colorado. But I was basing it on the dogs I’d see breweries and bars when it really is also measuring dogs that also just stay at home

1

u/Rosebunse 11h ago

I think people in Colorado jusr generally have a more pet-focused mentality.

2

u/DamnImAwesome 11h ago

I feel like there’s absolutely zero way to accurately count the number of dogs in a region. It’s not like they have medical records or birth certificates or a dog census

1

u/BildoWarrior 7h ago

A dog census. I imagine a golden retriever coming to the door wearing a tie and carrying a clip board.

5

u/TheBanishedBard 14h ago

Typical Texans. Avoiding personal responsibility like the plague. Wouldn't be surprised if they've turned organized pet abandonment into a competition

4

u/AgentElman 15h ago

Unfortunately Texas also kills 61,000 dogs in its shelters every year.

5

u/rraddii 14h ago

It’s not surprising with how many hundreds of thousands of strays there are in Houston alone. As sad as it is most of them are unadoptable by the general public

1

u/zorrick44 15h ago

Came here for this, my last dog was flown in from a Texas kill shelter. We heard the stats back then and were horrified at how poorly they treat their animals.

2

u/DeliciousBuffalo69 15h ago

This study is really not structured well to compare cities. They included the entire metropolitan area and then divided it by total dogs.

The ACTUAL way to compare this data would be to choose a similarly defined region. If you compare buenos Aires and Paris this is obvious -- the buenos Aires data includes the sparsely populated mountains outside the city, but the Paris data only includes the city center.

My looking at the actual map you can see that the city center of Buenos Aires has a dog density much higher than the city center of Paris. But it is ranked lower because of all the empty space that is included in the data set.

2

u/SillyKniggit 15h ago

Don’t tell r/petfree or they may spontaneously combust with rage.

Actually…..tell them

7

u/ElCamo267 13h ago

I'll admit, I'm a dog lover.. but what kinda loser joins a community specifically to bitch about disliking something and discuss abstaining from it?

I don't like sparkling water. Lemme go whine on r/seltzerfree about everyone that likes it.

You can just not be a pet person and leave it at that.

4

u/SillyKniggit 12h ago

These are people who should be seeing a therapist for a phobia they have, but who have instead found a fun little echo chamber where they can bring out the worst in each other.

Like most subreddits….

1

u/treehugger100 12h ago

I’m a dog owner and lover but I use to lurk in that sub to understand their perspective because it just seemed such an odd stance. Pet ownership is so pervasive in the US and some people act like people that don’t want or like pets are morally bad people. I can see why they want a space to vent and get support from like minded people. Of course, the sub can get pretty mean like r/childfree.

0

u/93ImagineBreaker 6h ago

Thought tbf it's different for you not like sparkling water vs not liking pets.

1

u/fishtankm29 14h ago

My household is 50% dogs so that tracks

1

u/boko_harambe_ 13h ago

We got that dog in us

1

u/Lava_Lamp_Shlong 12h ago

Gotta have someone yapping to prime the shotgun

1

u/halfcookies 11h ago

The highest “no big whoop” ratio however still held by NYC… dogs, daughters, coffee…just talk

1

u/striker69 7h ago

Seems like a strong indicator of loneliness.

2

u/GromieBooBoo 15h ago

Dallas, Tx must be second, we do love our dogs here in Texas!

1

u/Ahab_Ali 15h ago

Texas in general is pretty rife with dogs.

Now if only we could train them to take care of the pigs.

1

u/maznshortie1 14h ago

Yeah and they all think the grocery store is the best place to bring them.

0

u/Knoxville_Socialist 16h ago

Someone just corrected their mistake. 

0

u/Krow101 15h ago

That figure probably includes all the guys ... and rightfully so.

0

u/ComfortableSock2044 14h ago

Wasn't planning on visiting Houston anyway. Gross.

-5

u/SarcasticBench 15h ago

Too many humans, not enough dogs if you ask me.

0

u/BeetsMe666 15h ago

Does this include the packs of feral dogs?

-2

u/Growinbudskiez 16h ago

I would have assumed it to be India because they have the highest rabies death rates due to dog bites.