PetSmart statistics show the scale of a major North American pet retailer and the reach of its nonprofit adoption and veterinary-care work. The company says it was founded in 1987 and now operates approximately 1,670 or more stores in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. PetSmart also reports more than 50,000 store associates, 2,000 distribution-center associates, and 2,300 office associates.
This page brings together the supplied figures from We Are PetSmart, PetSmart Charities impact pages, PetSmart Charities releases, and PetSmart Charities study methods. Dates and geography matter: some numbers are current organizational counts, some describe cumulative activity since 1994, and others are estimates, forecasts, or survey results.
Contents
- PetSmart at a glance
- Stores, people, and services
- PetSmart Charities adoption network
- Grants and charitable investment
- Veterinary-care access and affordability
- What the Gallup study measured
PetSmart at a glance
The following figures describe the organization’s reported footprint and the historical development of PetSmart Charities. They should not be read as measurements from one single date. The retail and workforce figures are presented by We Are PetSmart, while the nonprofit milestones come from PetSmart Charities materials.
| Measure | Reported figure | Geography or period |
|---|---|---|
| PetSmart founding year | 1987 | Company history |
| PetSmart stores | Approximately 1,670+ | United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico |
| In-store PetsHotel facilities | More than 200 | Dog and cat boarding facilities |
| Store associates | 50,000+ | PetSmart workforce |
| Distribution-center associates | 2,000+ | PetSmart workforce |
| Office associates | 2,300+ | PetSmart workforce |
| PetSmart Charities adoption milestone | 11 million pets | Reached in 2025 |
PetSmart Charities says it was formed as a separate nonprofit in 1994. Its Canadian organization was established in 1999 as a separately registered charity. The organization also says that Elise became the 1 millionth pet adopted from a PetSmart Charities adoption center in the United States in 2001.
The organization’s history includes an earlier retail name: PetFood Warehouse was established in 1989 and later became PETsMART, according to PetSmart Charities’ about-us material. These historical details provide context for the later expansion of stores, adoption centers, and charitable programs, but they are not current operating counts.
Stores, people, and services
We Are PetSmart reports approximately 1,670 or more PetSmart stores across the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. The same source reports more than 200 in-store PetSmart PetsHotel dog and cat boarding facilities. Together, these figures indicate that boarding is a substantial part of the store network, although the supplied figures do not state the percentage of stores with a PetsHotel.
The reported workforce is divided into three groups:
- More than 50,000 store associates.
- More than 2,000 distribution-center associates.
- More than 2,300 office associates.
These are reported headcounts with “plus” qualifiers, so they represent minimum-style descriptions rather than exact totals. They also describe different work settings and should not be combined into a precise employee total without a common measurement date and methodology.
We Are PetSmart lists several services alongside retail operations. These include dog training, pet grooming, pet boarding, PetSmart Doggie Day Camp, and pet adoption services. PetsHotel refers to in-store dog and cat boarding facilities, while Doggie Day Camp is listed as a separate service. The supplied facts do not include prices, utilization rates, appointment volumes, or the number of locations offering each service.
Adoption is therefore both a store-based service and a nonprofit partnership activity. PetSmart Charities says it works with 1,693 PetSmart stores to find adoption partners. That figure is close to, but not identical with, the approximately 1,670-plus store count reported by We Are PetSmart. Because the sources use different labels and may refer to different measurement dates, the two figures should remain separate rather than being treated as a discrepancy that can be resolved from the available facts.
PetSmart Charities adoption network
PetSmart Charities reports that 11,638,387 pets have found homes. Its impact page also lists 10,037 grant recipients and $719,251,976 in awarded grant funds. The impact page does not provide a measurement date in the supplied facts, so these should be treated as reported cumulative totals rather than as a current-year result.
Other PetSmart Charities materials describe the adoption effort using rounded historical or annual figures. The organization says that more than 11 million pets found homes through in-store adoptions since 1994. It says it has helped more than 5 million homeless pets through North American shelter partnerships and works with shelters across North America to help more than 400,000 pets find homes each year.
PetSmart Charities also says it works with more than 2,500 animal-welfare partners. It crossed the 10 million pet-adoption milestone in 2022 and reached the 11 million milestone in 2025. These milestone statements describe different points in time; they are not separate sets of pets to add to the 11,638,387 cumulative figure.
The organization gives several additional descriptions of adoption need and reach:
- PetSmart Charities says 5 million pets need a loving home.
- It says food is a question mark for 30 million pets.
- It says it helps up to 600,000 pets connect with loving families each year.
The phrase “up to” signals a stated upper level, not a guaranteed annual total. Similarly, “need a loving home” and the food-related statement describe needs identified by PetSmart Charities, not independently measured counts established by the supplied material.
One earlier emergency-response figure comes from PetSmart Charities’ history: Hurricanes Katrina and Rita prompted a $3.5 million grant to more than 151 animal-welfare agencies. This is a historical response figure, not a current annual grant budget.
Grants and charitable investment
PetSmart Charities describes its giving through both cumulative totals and program-specific commitments. Its financial information says more than 90 cents of every donated dollar goes to pets, and the organization says it remains in the top 1% of all charities ranked. A separate published statement says it earned a Four-Star Charity Navigator rating for 18 years in a row.
The supplied materials contain multiple cumulative grant totals with different wording and apparent publication periods. PetSmart Charities says it has supported nonprofits and government entities with more than $600 million in grant funds since 1994. Another release says it has granted more than $500 million since inception, while a newer veterinary-care expansion release says more than $600 million since inception. These figures should not be added together. The newer greater-than-$600-million statement is the more recent supplied description, while the older greater-than-$500-million statement remains a historical published claim.
PetSmart Charities also reports more than $100 million donated to spay-and-neuter initiatives through 2018. In a veterinary-care press release, it committed more than $100 million over five years to improve access to veterinary care. The five-year commitment is a program commitment, not proof that the full amount had already been spent at the time of the statement.
Ahead of National Adoption Week, PetSmart Charities reported $5 million in grants to 150 animal shelters in 2025. A separate 2026 Adoption Prep release reported $3 million in grants to local shelters. These are year-specific or event-specific amounts and should not be combined with the cumulative grant totals above.
Veterinary-care access and affordability
PetSmart Charities identifies veterinary access as a large and growing challenge. It says 90 million U.S. households now include pets and expects pet healthcare service spending to increase by 33% over the next 10 years. The 33% figure is an expectation, so it is a forecast rather than a reported completed increase.
The organization says the cost of veterinary care spiked 10% in the last year alone. It also estimates that bridging the veterinary-care gap at standard prices would cost more than $20 billion annually. Both figures are attributed estimates or statements from PetSmart Charities; the supplied material does not provide an independent calculation or a separate price index.
PetSmart Charities says the national veterinarian population has increased by only 2.7% each year since 2007 and that an additional 41,000 veterinarians would be needed by 2030. The first figure describes an annual rate over a historical period. The second is a future workforce requirement, not a count of currently unfilled positions.
Affordability figures show how these pressures affect pet parents:
- 63% of pet parents find surprise veterinary expenses difficult to cover.
- Nearly 30% report that a veterinary bill of $499 or less would put them in debt.
- 52% of U.S. pet parents have skipped or declined needed veterinary care.
- Among those who skipped or declined care, 71% cite financial considerations as the reason.
These percentages measure different questions. The 71% figure applies only to respondents who said they had skipped or declined care; it is not 71% of all pet parents. The $499 threshold describes reported financial vulnerability, not a standard veterinary price.
PetSmart Charities’ 2026 veterinary-care expansion release says local animal-welfare partners received $31.9 million in grant funding since January 2023 to expand clinics. It says Accelerator Grants supported 51 low-cost, nonprofit veterinary clinics and that more than 819,000 pets had been served at significantly reduced costs through those clinic investments. The same release says PetSmart Charities deployed $61 million over the last three years to support its veterinary-care portfolio. These measures cover different scopes: clinic grants, pets served, and the broader portfolio.
What the Gallup study measured
The PetSmart Charities-Gallup study used a combined sample of 2,498 dog and cat owners in the United States. The Gallup web survey included 2,307 U.S. adults who currently owned at least one dog or cat, and the mail survey included 191 additional dog and cat owners.
The study reported a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.6 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. That margin applies to the study’s sampling estimate under its stated methodology; it does not turn the survey percentages into an exact census of every U.S. pet parent.
The survey’s most relevant findings are the 52% who said they had skipped or declined needed veterinary care and the 71% of that subgroup who cited financial considerations. The sample composition matters when interpreting those findings: the study focused on U.S. dog and cat owners, not all households, all companion animals, or every country where PetSmart operates.
Taken together, these PetSmart statistics connect a large retail and service network with a substantial adoption-partner system and an expanding veterinary-care portfolio. The figures also show why measurement labels matter: store counts, cumulative adoption milestones, annual adoption descriptions, grant commitments, forecasts, and survey percentages answer different questions and should be read within their stated geography and time period.