Dickinson County, MI has 1.4× more pet-care businesses per resident than the national average.
Dickinson County, MI already has 3 with employees and 14 without — 17 pet care services (excluding veterinary) in total, 6.5 per 10,000 residents against 4.7 nationally. That's 1.4× more than average, so this category is well covered here (US Census, County Business Patterns + Nonemployer Statistics 2023).
- In Dickinson County
- 3
- Per 10k residents
- 6.5
- National rate
- 4.7
- Ratio
- 1.4× more than average
Population 26,069. Ranked 31 of 39 Michigan counties with enough pet care data to compare — 1 = fewest per resident.
Source: US Census County Business Patterns ↗Census code 812910 covers non-veterinary pet services: boarding kennels, grooming, daycare, training and pet sitting.
The blind spot: Dog walking is overwhelmingly done by solo operators with no employees, and this count cannot see any of them. What it mostly counts is grooming salons and boarding facilities — premises businesses that a walker does not really compete with.
County Business Patterns counts establishments with paid employees. A solo operator with no payroll — the most likely competitor for most of these businesses — is invisible to it, in every county, including this one.
There are more of these per resident here than in the country at large. That is a genuine argument against starting one in Dickinson County without something specific that the 3already operating do not have. It is not fatal — a crowded category can still have a bad-service niche — but “there is room” is not the argument available to you here, and any tool that tells you otherwise is guessing.
Census counts these as one industry, so the 3 above includes all of them together. It cannot tell you how many are any single one.
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