Hampden County, MA has about as many pet-care businesses per resident as the national average.
Hampden County, MA has 23 with employees and 168 without — 191 pet care services (excluding veterinary) in total, 4.1 per 10,000 residents, about the national rate of 4.7 (US Census, County Business Patterns + Nonemployer Statistics 2023).
- In Hampden County
- 23
- Per 10k residents
- 4.1
- National rate
- 4.7
- Ratio
- About the national rate
Population 462,128. Ranked 1 of 14 Massachusetts counties with enough pet care data to compare — 1 = fewest per resident.
Sources: US Census County Business Patterns ↗ (businesses with employees) and Nonemployer Statistics ↗ (sole proprietors). Every figure here is the two added together.
Hampden County, MA has 58 more pet care services (excluding veterinary) than in 2017 — 133 then, 191 now, up 44%. Nationally the count grew 53% over the same years.
What this doesn't tell you: Census counts how many exist each year, not how many opened or closed. A rise of 58 could be 58 new businesses — or 66 openings and 8 closures. A year Census suppressed for this county is left out rather than counted as zero.
Series runs 2017–2023. Earlier vintages exist but are not comparable: Census changed which small counties it publishes after 2016, so including them would show counties losing an industry that never left.
Census code 812910 covers non-veterinary pet services: boarding kennels, grooming, daycare, training and pet sitting.
The blind spot: This code cannot tell a dog walker from a grooming salon or a boarding kennel — they are one industry to Census. The solo operators are counted (they are most of the number), but a county that looks well served might be full of premises businesses a walker does not really compete with, or full of walkers and short of kennels. The count cannot say which.
County Business Patterns counts only establishments with paid employees, which is why this page adds Nonemployer Statistics — the sole operators with no payroll, who are the majority in most of these trades. Both are counted above, and both are on census.gov if you want to check them.
Hampden County sits close to the national rate for this category, which means this number is not an argument in either direction. Supply here looks ordinary. If you want to start this business, the case has to come from something this measurement cannot see — pricing, service quality, or a neighbourhood nobody covers.
Census counts these as one industry, so the 23 above includes all of them together. It cannot tell you how many are any single one.
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