Do you want to help a dog in need? This dataset contains information on over 3,000 adoptable dogs across the United States. By understanding patterns of dog movement and relocation, we can help these animals find their forever homes.
The data includes information on the origin of each dog, as well as the state they are currently listed for adoption in. This can be used to understand patterns of dog movement across the country, and how different states rely on imported dogs for adoption.
There are several things to keep in mind when using this dataset:

• The data represents a single day of data. It is possible that patterns have changed since then.
• The data only includes adoptable dogs that were listed on PetFinder.com

How to use the dataset

This dataset of adoptable dogs in the US was collected to better understand how animals are relocated from state to state and imported from outside the US. The data includes information on over 3,000 dogs that were described as having originated in places different from where they were listed for adoption. The findings were published in a visual essay on The Pudding entitled Finding Forever Homes published in October 2019.
This dataset is a snapshot of data collected on a single day and does not include all adoptable dogs in the US. However, it provides valuable insights into the whereabouts of these animals and the journey they take to find their forever homes

How to use the dataset

This dataset is a great resource for understanding how adoptable dogs are relocated from state to state and imported into the US. The data provides information on the origin of each dog, as well as the state they are currently listed for adoption in. This can be used to understand patterns of dog movement across the country, and how different states rely on imported dogs for adoption.

Research Ideas

1. Finding out how many of each type and breed of dog are brought into shelters across the USA in a given year.
2. Seeing which states have the most imports of dogs and what breeds/types those are.
3. Determining if there are any trends in the types/breeds of dogs being brought into shelters (e.g. more pit bulls than golden retrievers)

Data Dictionary

• File: dogTravel.csv

  Column name	Description
  contact_city	The city where the animal is located. (String)
  contact_state	The state where the animal is located. (String)
  description	A description of the animal. (String)
  found	The date the animal was found. (Date)
  manual	A manual override for the animal's location. (String)
  remove	The date the animal was removed from the dataset. (Date)
  still_there	Whether or not the animal is still available for adoption. (Boolean)

• File: allDogDescriptions.csv

  Column name	Description
  contact_city	The city where the animal is located. (String)
  contact_state	The state where the animal is located. (String)
  description	A description of the animal. (String)
  url	The URL of the animal's profile on PetFinder. (String)
  type.x	The type of animal. (String)
  species	The species of the animal. (String)
  breed_primary	The primary breed of the animal. (String)
  breed_secondary	The secondary breed of the animal. (String)
  breed_mixed	Whether the animal is a mixed breed. (String)
  breed_unknown	Whether the animal's breed is unknown. (String)
  color_primary	The primary color of the animal. (String)
  color_secondary	The secondary color of the animal. (String)
  color_tertiary	The tertiary color of the animal. (String)
  age	The age of the animal. (String)
  sex	The animal's sex. (String)
  size	The size of the animal. (String)
  coat	The type of coat the animal has. (String)
  fixed	Whether the animal is spayed or neutered. (String)
  house_trained	Whether the animal is house trained. (String)
  declawed	Whether the animal is declawed. (String)
  special_needs	Whether the animal has any special needs. (String)
  shots_current	Whether the animal is up to date on shots. (String)
  env_children	Whether the animal is good with children. (String)

• File: movesByLocation.csv

  Column name	Description
  location	The state where the dog is located. (String)
  exported	The number of dogs exported from the state. (Integer)
  imported	The number of dogs imported to the state. (Integer)
  total	The total number of dogs in the state. (Integer)
  inUS	The number of dogs in the US. (Integer)