r/InternetIsBeautiful • u/drgfrt • 8d ago

Every licensed dog in New York City, mapped by neighborhood. Search any breed or name to see where in the city it's most common.

https://everydog.nyc

I built this from New York City's Open Data portal's dog licenses data file, which lists each dog's name, breed, and birth year, and the owner's ZIP code. The 2026 file has 96,459 dogs, and the site places them across 197 neighborhoods (Neighborhood Tabulation Areas).

Things to try:

  • Type a breed or a name like "Labradoodle" or "Luna" into the search box, and the map shows where it is most common.
  • Put "vs" between up to four breeds, names, or boroughs to compare them, as in "Luna vs Bella" or "Brooklyn vs Queens."
  • Click a neighborhood to see its top breeds and names, along with the ZIP codes its numbers come from.
  • Zoom in far enough and the dogs ride the subway on the real routes. Click a train to follow it!
  • Add your own dog. You get a card comparing them with the city, a subway ride, and a turn in the Central Park or Prospect Park game, and the dog stays in your browser.

A license records only a ZIP code, so every neighborhood figure is an estimate. The code and the method are open source, accessible here: https://github.com/firatciftci/every-dog-in-new-york

57 Upvotes

79% Upvoted

17 comments sorted by

12

u/casiopt10 7d ago

Turns out the dog in me is unlicensed

7

u/CarneyVore14 7d ago

Cruella would love this.

4

u/aerothorn 8d ago

Do you have an estimation as to what % of dogs are registered? I know in Sacramento it was something like 9%.

5

u/drgfrt 7d ago

The city’s Economic Development Corporation estimated about 425,000 dogs in 2017. The 2026 dog licenses file has 96,459 licenses, which is ~23%. It seems to be quite common for dog owners to get a license for their dogs once and then let it lapse.

3

u/Correct-Moment-2458 7d ago

One caveat on the ~23% figure: the license count is from 2026, but the population estimate you cite is from 2017. That's a cross-year comparison, so it doesn't directly measure the share of NYC dogs licensed in 2026.

1

u/aerothorn 7d ago

Thanks, I appreciate you digging into it!

1

u/ggnoobert 7d ago

This is probably too low to be accurate. Around the us the average dog ownership percentage by household is somewhere between 47-53%. That would put dog owners somewhere in the 1.5m dog range (not even accounting for multi dog households.

That said, perhaps the city would be below that average bc of the size of the dwellings. But still, I would guess that 450k number is quite low.

3

u/iamyouareheisme 7d ago

It’s a bit difficult to use.

1

u/aristidedn 5d ago

The ability to sink Staten Island really pulled the whole app together.

1

u/Ok-Voice9973 4d ago

A NYC census, but the subjects are puppies 🐶

1

u/compounding-errors 3d ago

The fact that you went beyond mapping 96,000 dogs and made them ride the subway is incredible.

-14

u/Smooothoperat0r 7d ago

It’s so dystopian to be forced into registering an animal that you have in your own home. It’s none of the government’s business. Wake up people.

3

u/mayafied 6d ago

I think you’ve confused being mildly inconvenienced with being oppressed.

-1

u/Smooothoperat0r 5d ago

Explain why the government needs to have a record of your dog in your house. Being “inconvenienced” would be having my dog poop in the house.

Being told I have to register my dog is much more in the camp of onerous, unnecessary, and should be outright objected by a free man.

6

u/mayafied 5d ago

NYC dog licensing helps identify lost dogs, establish ownership, support bite follow-up & fund animal control services. It’s not about policing what happens inside your home.

0

u/Smooothoperat0r 4d ago

And flock camera do help catch criminals. But… The juice is not worth the squeeze and those should be outright objected to as well.

Remember the poor squirrel getting murdered because NYC said they didn’t like it? Stupid.

Why is it all our tangible freedoms must be given up to live in society? The point is that big city democrats love to make you feel like they are the ones granting you your freedoms. Any new restriction they can put on you means more power and control. That’s really all any initiative is and it’s the government’s only playbook: take more power.

I just miss the idea of the freedom imbued in the 60-80s citizens that rejected government. Here we are and free thinkers would rather give up every freedom they have to politicians that are provably corrupt and will use that power against the individual at any chance they can.