By The Numbers
Want the real deal? Here's where the rubber meets the road.

1. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service estimates that domestic cats kill more than 39 million birds annually -- and that's just in Wisconsin.

2. There are over 66 million pet cats in the United States; approximately 35 percent are kept exclusively indoors.

3. Certain studies have shown that children who grow up with two or more pets are more than 75 percent less likely to develop allergies later in life.

4. Sixty percent of pet owners have a dog; on average owners have almost two dogs (1.7).

5. Over 5,500 puppies and kittens (compared with 415 human babies) are born every hour in the United States.

6. The U.S. Dept. of Health found that 28 percent of heart patients who were also pet owners survived serious heart attacks, compared with 6 percent of patients without pets.

7. In 1994, Time magazine estimated that as many as 25 percent of purebred dogs were afflicted with serious genetic problems.

8. Shelter workers nationwide are forced to euthanize an estimated 3 to 4 million homeless cats and dogs each year. 

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