Last week Gene Balk, the FYI Guy at the Seattle Times posted this map of Seattle dogs that contains detailed information from dog licensing data he got from the Seattle Animal Shelter regarding the 43,000 licensed dogs in Seattle.
You can see all the data he used on this spreadsheet. Here are a few of the things he found:
Top female dog name – Lucy (490 dogs)
Top male dog name – Buddy (292 dogs)
Top breed – Labrador Retriever
Top 10 quirkiest names – Abe Froman (Labrador Retriever), i-dog (Labrador Retriever), and Cordless (dachshund). You can see the rest of them in the article.
If, like me, you’re wondering who Abe Froman is, here’s the explanation from Urban Dictionary: “Who Ferris Bueller says he is when trying to get a table in a fancy and expensive restaurant. Abe Froman is supposedly the “Sausage King of Chicago”. Also good as a false name when you need one.”
You’d think that since I’ve seen that movie a gazillion times I would have remembered that.
Balk also constructed a map showing the most popular dog names, dog density, dog ownership rate, and average pet spending by zip code.
Image from Seattle Times.
For instance, the areas with the largest dog density (dogs per square mile) are Ballard, Wallingford, Fremont, Greenlake, Eastlake, Belltown, Downtown and Capitol Hill.
The areas with the fewest dogs per square mile are Beacon Hill, Georgetown, South Park and South Seattle.
The areas with the most dogs per resident are Broadview, Ballard, Wallingford, Phinney Ridge, Maple Leaf, Ravenna, Sand Point, Wedgwood, Roosevelt, Magnolia, West Seattle, Alki, Delridge, and Arbor Heights.
Laurelhurst, Windermere, U-District, and South Seattle have the fewest dogs per resident.
The people who live in Richmond Beach, The Highlands, and Broadview spend the most on their dogs – $752.20 per year.
Dogs owners in SoDo, First Hill, and Downtown spend the least – $376.12 per year.
This is just a sample of the data broken out in the article. Remember that it only shows information about dogs with licenses, and most people in Seattle don’t license your dogs (you know who you are).
Leave a Reply