That is one key finding from a nationwide survey of dog owners conducted by My Dog Votes (New York), which sells nonpartisan T-shirts, bumper stickers and other products designed to foster greater levels of voter participation among dog owners.

The survey, conducted online at www.mydogvotes.com in late 2005, sought to show that dog owners are a viable political constituency in local and state elections and to measure the political impact of local legislation and policies that negatively affect dog ownership, according to the company. More than a thousand dog owners, primarily women between the ages of 25 and 54, answered 118 questions on topics such as homeowner’s insurance discrimination, breed bans, pet limit laws, mandatory microchipping and more.

Among the findings, released in October:

• 97.9 percent of dog owners oppose ordinances that ban or restrict dogs by weight or size, while 78 percent oppose pet limit laws.
• 97.8 percent of respondents oppose breed bans, and 80.3 percent said that a candidate’s position on breed bans would influence their vote in a local or state election.
• 94.3 percent of dog owners consider dog laws and policies a more important concern than property taxes.
• 92.9 percent would cross party lines in a local or state election to preserve the right to own the dog of their choice.
• More than 80 percent of respondents said a candidate’s position on breed discrimination in homeowner’s/renter’s insurance would influence their vote.
• 77 percent of respondents oppose mandatory microchipping.
• 54.6 percent said they would cross party lines to vote against a candidate who supports guardianship over ownership. Only 9.9 percent would vote for a candidate that supports the term “guardian.”

My Dog Votes plans to conduct the opinion survey annually, and expand it to include a larger sampling of dog owners from key demographics.

The company launched a Canadian version of the survey in November. [January 2007 PET AGE]