Home is not truly complete without a pet or pets, which is why a lot of households have, furry, scaly, or feathery friends. That being said, some pets are clearly more popular than others, and there are statistics to prove it. The problem is how do we exactly measure the popularity of the pets? Is it by the number of households that actually owns them, or by how the internet reacts to those animals?  Well, a little bit of both.

With that in mind let’s see what are the most popular pets in the US for the year 2020. 

Fish

Based on the numbers fish has everyone beat. There are around 9.6 million saltwater fish pets and incredible 142 million freshwater fish pets in the US. However, it’s hard to gauge the popularity based on these numbers. First of all, having an aquarium is always a nice touch, so it’s like having a pet and a decoration at the same time. For that reason, many aquarium owners have multiple species of fish as pets, meaning these numbers do not reflect the number of households that have fish pets, but rather the number of fish pets in total. 

Birds 

Much like fish, birds are associated mainly with food, but some species are great pets. Birds used to be caged because of their appearance, so much like fish, they are a pet and decoration in one. This is rarely the case nowadays though, and birds can actually be a great animal companion. Ravens and macaws are large and quite intelligent, they can also learn to mimic human language, so it’s easy to bond with them. Macaws can also live up to 50 years which can make them a pet for life in a lot of cases. Typically, small parrots and canaries make up most of the bird pet population. 

Cats and dogs   

Cats and dogs are without a doubt the most popular and the most common pets in the US. In fact, some of them even became celebrities through memes, as I am sure everyone reading this knows about “Grumpy Cat.” These were animal companions throughout history, even during the ancient time, so it’s hard to imagine our civilization without them. They are both our friends, and they are also pretty useful in some cases. 

Cats are good at hunting and chasing down vermins, dogs provide protection and can help with herding. Right now, there are more pet cats compared to dogs, around 88 million to 74 million. However, it seems that people love dogs more than cats because of their loyalty and because it’s been man’s best friend since forever.