Pet Health Statistics USA

More than two-thirds of U.S. dogs and nearly two-thirds of cats show dental disease by the time they're seen at a veterinary clinic, a clear majority of pets qualify as overweight or obese under a vet's clinical assessment even though most owners don't recognize it in their own pet, and a growing share of owners are delaying veterinary care altogether for cost reasons.

The statistics below combine clinical veterinary data from Banfield Pet Hospital (drawn from millions of real patient visits across 1,000+ hospitals) with survey data from the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) and the Association for Pet Obesity Prevention (APOP). APOP runs two very different kinds of surveys — a large, clinic-based body-condition assessment and a much smaller pet-owner opinion survey — and this page keeps those two clearly labeled and separate rather than blending them, since a vet's clinical assessment and an owner's self-report measure genuinely different things and produce very different numbers.

The Obesity Perception Gap

When veterinarians assess pets directly using the 9-point Body Condition Score system, APOP's 2022 clinic-based prevalence survey found 59% of dogs and 61% of cats classified as overweight or obese. But when APOP separately asked owners for their own opinion in its 2024 survey (published April 2025, based on just over 580 respondents), only 35% of dog owners and 33% of cat owners said their own pet was overweight or had obesity — up from 17% and 28% respectively in the 2023 opinion survey, but still far below the clinically assessed rate. Reinforcing that gap, just 45% of dog owners and 40% of cat owners in the 2024 opinion survey said they were even familiar with the Body Condition Score system, and fewer than 30% recalled ever receiving a BCS score from their own veterinarian.

Dental Disease Is Nearly Universal

Banfield's clinical data — drawn from more than 3 million pets across its 1,000+ U.S. hospital locations — found 73% of dogs and 64% of cats diagnosed with dental-related issues (February 2024). Prevalence varied by breed and region: among the ten most common breeds seen at Banfield, Beagles had the highest rate at 80.7%, and the Midwest had the highest regional prevalence (76.7% of dogs, 70.2% of cats) versus the Northeast's lowest (64.7% and 55.5%). Advanced periodontal disease also correlates with more serious systemic illness: cats with advanced periodontal disease were 1.5x more likely to develop chronic kidney disease, and dogs were 2.3x more likely to develop chronic kidney disease and 6.3x more likely to develop endocarditis.

Arthritis and the Obesity Connection

The most recent dedicated osteoarthritis dataset Banfield has published is from its 2019 State of Pet Health Report, which analyzed a decade of clinical data (roughly 2009–2018) across 2.5 million dogs and 500,000 cats. It found osteoarthritis diagnoses rose 66% in dogs and 150% in cats over that period, and that 52% of arthritic dogs and 41% of arthritic cats were also overweight or obese. Because this is the newest OA-specific report publicly available from Banfield, it should be read as historical trend data rather than a current snapshot.

Veterinary Visit Frequency and the Cost Barrier

AVMA's 2024 survey of 7,539 pet owners found 69.1% had visited a veterinary practice in the previous year — but with a sharp gap by species: 74.2% of dog owners had visited in the past year compared with just 57.3% of cat owners. Cost pressure is a growing factor behind gaps like this: a separate AVMA survey found 46% of pet owners report delaying or skipping veterinary procedures altogether, most often dentistry, diagnostic imaging, and spay/neuter surgery. Pet insurance is one response to that cost pressure — North American pet insurance premium volume grew 20.8% in 2024 over a 2023 base of $4.2 billion, according to AVMA.

For state-level parasite prevalence data, see our heartworm statistics by state, Lyme disease statistics by state, and giardia statistics by state pages.

The Big Picture

The clearest theme across clinical veterinary data is a gap between what's actually happening in pets' bodies and what owners perceive: most pets seen in clinics show dental disease or excess weight, but most owners don't recognize either condition in their own pet, and a meaningful share are actively delaying care for cost reasons. Because clinical assessments (from Banfield and APOP's clinic-based survey) and owner self-reports (from APOP's opinion survey and AVMA's owner surveys) measure fundamentally different things, this page keeps them clearly separated rather than treating them as interchangeable.