Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

I the year of 2008 there were more than 60 000 purebred dogs newly registered in the
Swedish Kennel Club. In addition there are a lot of mixed breed dogs and in the year of
2006 it was estimated that there were over 700 000 dogs in Sweden. In today’s society it is
not unusual that people change their life situation by moving, getting a new job or starting
a family. Because of this there is a risk of rehoming for dogs owned by these people.

In Sweden dogs are among others rehomed by advertising or by rehoming organisations. A
study of research was done to see how a dog is affected by being rehomed and being in a
shelter for rehoming. Research about Swedish rehoming organisations or shelters does not
exist and because of this interviews were done with some of these. The organisations that
were interviewed worked in different ways. Some had their own shelters, some had the
dogs in temporary homes or they just mediated contact information between sellers and
buyers.

One of the big questions before this study started was if it is possible to see any patterns in
which dogs that people want to rehome and why. This was done partly by asking what the
organisations thought and by analysing data that was collected from advertisements which
were found on www.blocket.se during the month of January. The results of the
advertisements were among others that there was no difference in gender of the dogs
(p=0,165), that purebred dogs were more common than mixed breeds (p<0,001) and that
there were more dogs between six months and two years of age than younger than six
months and over two years of age. Other results from the advertisements shown in this
paper are which breeds, and those breeds in mixed breed dogs that were most common and
what reasons people report for rehoming their dog.