Large dedicated sections for dog and cat food in supermarkets. Numerous areas set aside for pets to do their business in city parks. And the traditional funny home videos of pets, which have been repurposed as memes and GIFs on social media.

Although dogs and cats have always lived alongside families for centuries in a more rural Europe, today they reign supreme in cities.

No less than 49 per cent of European households have at least one of the 306 million pets living on the continent, according to the latest statistics from FEDIAF, which represents the majority of companies in the pet food industry.

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In 2024, it is estimated that there were 111 million cats, 91 million dogs and 44 million birds kept as pets. To this must be added rabbits, fish, reptiles and other animals kept at home at their owners’ discretion.

All these animals need to be fed, and to this end, nearly 9 million tonnes of pet food are sold each year in Europe.

Less children

These figures are particularly significant when compared with the number of children in European families, as The European Correspondent has done.

No country in the Old Continent comes anywhere near the replacement rate needed to maintain the population (2.1 children per woman). Bulgaria has the highest rate (1.72 in 2024), followed by France (1.61).

If we look at the number of children aged between 0 and 14 in European households, according to Eurostat data, the figure stands at just 1.4 million. The European average is 0.4 children under 15 for every pet, and only in North Macedonia and Montenegro do the youngest residents in that age group outnumber pets.

In fact, pet dogs alone outnumber children in at least 15 European countries.

Why so many pets?

Experts cite the pandemic as a pivotal moment when loneliness at home prompted many to recognise the need for a pet. Furthermore, the general decline in marriages, birth rates and cohabiting couples, has left a more prominent place for pets.

This, of course, also translates into enormous expenditure. According to industry figures, 29 billion euros are spent on pet food in Europe each year. To this must be added a further 25 billion euros on pet accessories and care, according to The European Correspondent.

Legislation in Europe will also need to continue regulating the way in which people interact with these pets. In Spain, for example, there have already been groundbreaking court rulings on how to divide custody of dogs and cats.