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Bone Voyage
Original research

Rise of the Underdog

We asked 3,000 Americans a simple question: if you got a dog tomorrow, would you adopt one from your local shelter, or buy a purebred from a registered breeder? Here is what every state said.

Survey of 3,000 US adults · Fielded July 2023 · Published August 2023

Would adopt from a shelter
46% nationally, up 6 points on earlier data
Highest state
81% Nebraska
Lowest state
14% South Dakota
People surveyed
3,000 US adults, all 50 states

A note on the date. This survey was fielded in July 2023, so treat it as a snapshot of that moment rather than as today's number. We are keeping it online because reporters, researchers, and shelters still cite it, and a study that vanishes is no use to anybody. If you want to be told when we refresh it, the backup adopter page has a signup.

The headline finding

Forty-six percent of potential dog owners told us they intended to adopt from a shelter, which was a 6 percentage point increase on earlier data. That is a real move, and it showed up again in search behavior: 22 of the top 25 states we looked at showed the same shift in Google Trends.

The spread between states is the part most people find surprising. Nebraska came in at 81 percent. South Dakota came in at 14. Those are neighbors.

Every state, ranked

Sort by state name or by percentage. The full table is below, all 50 states, nothing hidden behind a filter.

Percentage of surveyed adults in each state who prefer adopting a shelter dog over buying from a breeder, July 2023
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1 NE Nebraska 81%
2 NM New Mexico 75%
3 WY Wyoming 75%
4 IA Iowa 64%
5 WV West Virginia 64%
6 CO Colorado 61%
7 IL Illinois 60%
8 KY Kentucky 58%
9 MO Missouri 53%
10 NJ New Jersey 53%
11 KS Kansas 52%
12 MA Massachusetts 52%
13 TN Tennessee 51%
14 CT Connecticut 50%
15 HI Hawaii 50%
16 ID Idaho 50%
17 MT Montana 50%
18 NH New Hampshire 50%
19 VT Vermont 50%
20 WA Washington 50%
21 AZ Arizona 49%
22 NY New York 49%
23 VA Virginia 49%
24 OR Oregon 48%
25 WI Wisconsin 48%
26 OK Oklahoma 47%
27 PA Pennsylvania 47%
28 AL Alabama 46%
29 AK Alaska 46%
30 ND North Dakota 46%
31 TX Texas 46%
32 UT Utah 46%
33 FL Florida 45%
34 NC North Carolina 45%
35 AR Arkansas 44%
36 MS Mississippi 44%
37 OH Ohio 44%
38 CA California 42%
39 GA Georgia 41%
40 LA Louisiana 41%
41 MD Maryland 39%
42 SC South Carolina 39%
43 IN Indiana 38%
44 MI Michigan 37%
45 RI Rhode Island 37%
46 MN Minnesota 32%
47 DE Delaware 30%
48 NV Nevada 27%
49 ME Maine 25%
50 SD South Dakota 14%

What we took from it

Interest in shelter dogs went up, not down

A 6 point rise in stated intent to adopt is not a rounding error, and the search data moved with it rather than against it. Two independent signals pointing the same way is the reason we published this at all.

A handful of states are far ahead of the rest

Nebraska, New Mexico, and Wyoming all landed between 75 and 81 percent. Whatever those states are doing, the rest of the country has room to copy it.

What a shift like this would actually change

  • Fewer dogs sitting in shelters, which means more space, more staff attention, and more medical care available per animal still waiting.
  • Less demand for unethical breeding, including puppy mills, if buyers keep moving toward adoption.
  • Better outcomes for the dogs who get adopted, in living conditions, physical health, and behavior.
  • A broader cultural move toward responsible pet ownership, which is slower than the other three and matters more than all of them.

Why this study matters to us

Bone Voyage started as a rescue moving dogs out of Mexico and into permanent homes. The work now is about the promise underneath that: making sure a dog has somewhere to go before the crisis arrives, not after. That is what a backup adopter is, and it is the question we would rather people asked early: what happens to your dog when you die.

If you are thinking about adopting, our breeds and adoption guides are a decent place to start, and if you already have a dog getting on in years, senior dog care and longevity is where we keep the practical material.

Methodology

Online panel survey of 3,000 US adults, fielded July 2023, sampled on age, gender, and geography. Internal data sources were used to obtain population data sets. We used a two-step process to ensure representativeness: stratified sampling, then post-stratification weighting. Additional insights were derived from Google Trends.

Using this data

You are welcome to cite these numbers, reproduce the table, or build on it. We ask only for a link back to this page so readers can see the methodology. If you are a journalist and want the state-level breakdown in a spreadsheet, or want to know when the refreshed edition lands, get in touch.