Ogle County, IL has 1.3× fewer pet-care businesses per resident than the national average.
Ogle County, IL has 4 with employees and 15 without — 19 pet care services (excluding veterinary) in total, 3.7 per 10,000 residents against a national rate of 4.7. That's 1.3× fewer than average (US Census, County Business Patterns + Nonemployer Statistics 2023).
78%
of the national rate — pet care services (excluding veterinary) per 10,000 residents in Ogle County, IL
Businesses per 10,000 residents · national rate = 100% · axis 0–200%
The shaded band is the range Scoutway treats as ordinary. A county inside it is average, and the difference from the national rate is not an argument in either direction.
US Census County Business Patterns + Nonemployer Statistics 2023 · NAICS 812910. This counts how many of these businesses there are — not how many people want one. Ask around before you spend anything.
- In Ogle County
- 19
- Per 10k residents
- 3.7
- National rate
- 4.7
- Ratio
- 1.3× fewer than average
Population 51,391. Ranked 5 of 41 Illinois 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.
No Census figure for 2022. The dashed span is a break in the data, not a measured path.
Ogle County, IL has 3 fewer pet care services (excluding veterinary) than in 2021 — 22 then, 19 now, down 14%. Nationally the count grew 32% over the same years.
Ogle County moved against the national direction over these years. That is the part worth asking about locally — the data says it happened, not why.
What this doesn't tell you: Census counts how many exist each year, not how many opened or closed. A drop of 3 could be 3 closures — or 11 closures and 8 openings. A year Census suppressed for this county is left out rather than counted as zero.
Series runs 2021–2023. 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.
What this doesn't tell you: A low count can mean an opening — or that there's less local demand for it. This counts how many businesses exist, including sole proprietors, but not how many customers want one. Treat it as a lead to check, not a verdict.
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.
Fewer of these per resident than the country average is a reason to look, not a reason to start. The two explanations the data cannot separate are “nobody has served this yet” and “there is less to serve here” — a county with few pool services may simply have few pools. The next step is not a business plan, it is ten phone calls to people in Ogle County who would pay for it.
Census counts these as one industry, so the 19 above includes all of them together. It cannot tell you how many are any single one.
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