Bibliography
Sources used
A consolidated list of the data, surveys, and guidelines we draw on. Where individual numbers come from a specific source, we link inline on the relevant page.
Industry & ownership data
- AVMA — U.S. Pet Ownership and Demographics Sourcebook
- APPA — National Pet Owners Survey
- Banfield Pet Hospital — State of Pet Health
- ASPCA — pet care cost guidance
- Synchrony / CareCredit — Lifetime of Care studies (cats and dogs)
Veterinary cost & pricing
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — CPI for Veterinary Services
- AVDC — American Veterinary Dental College
- VECCS — Veterinary Emergency & Critical Care Society
AAHA / AAFP veterinary practice guidelines
- AAHA 2022 Canine Vaccination Guidelines — used for core vs non-core dog vaccines
- AAHA/AAFP 2020 Feline Vaccination Guidelines — used for cat vaccine logic
Veterinary research & specialty centers
- Cornell Feline Health Center — peer-reviewed cat health information
- Cornell Riney Canine Health Center
- OFA — Orthopedic Foundation for Animals
- JAVMA / AVMA Open — peer-reviewed veterinary research
Behavior & breed-trait research
- C-BARQ — Canine Behavioral Assessment & Research Questionnaire — UPenn Vet (Hsu & Serpell, 2003 and ongoing). The validated owner-survey instrument used in dozens of peer-reviewed canine-behavior studies; the source for breed-level aggregate scores on attachment, stranger reactivity, trainability, and energy on our breed comparison page.
- Morrill et al. (2022) — Ancestry-inclusive dog genomics challenges popular breed stereotypes — Science. The 2,000-dog study showing breed explains only ~9% of behavioral variation between individual dogs. Cited site-wide as the basis for "breed tendencies, not individual predictions" framing.
- American Temperament Test Society (ATTS) — public breed pass-rate data used to sanity-check temperament claims.
- AKC breed standards — function statements (Working, Herding, Sporting, etc.) used for protective-instinct context.
- CFA — Cat Fanciers' Association breed standards and TICA breed standards — cat trait baselines.
Pet insurance & consumer guidance
- NAPHIA — North American Pet Health Insurance Association
- NAIC — pet insurance model law and consumer guidance
Government & regulatory
- CDC — Healthy Pets, Healthy People
- FDA-CVM — Center for Veterinary Medicine
- BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey — pets, pet products, services
Where individual numbers come from a specific source, that source is linked inline on the relevant page. The CSV files under /assets/data/csv/ are the underlying dataset and are themselves auditable.