The number of dogs or cats recorded as at home on Dogs and Cats Online in one council area that share a sex, registration status, microchip status and desexing status.

What does registered mean here?

The publisher counts an animal as registered if its owner paid the registration fee for the financial year, or where the council charges no fee, confirmed or updated the animal's details. All others are unregistered.

The council where the animal is housed, which may differ from the council where its owner lives.

Which year does the table cover?

The newest extract from Dogs and Cats Online, taken on 30 May 2025 at the first version. The publisher releases a new portal dataset each year, and each extract becomes a version here.

Datasets / South Australia / Environment and Water / Dogs and Cats Online, South Australia

Dogs and cats by council, registration, microchip and desexing, South Australia

Name: Dogs and cats by council, registration, microchip and desexing, South Australia
Creator: Department for Environment and Water
Published: 2025-07-04
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

live

Publisher Department for Environment and WaterUpdated yearlyLicence CC BY 4.0Latest 2025-07-04Rows 1,982Fields 7

Animal counts from Dogs and Cats Online (DACO), from the Department for Environment and Water. Each row is one council, species, sex, registration status, microchip status and desexing status, with the number of animals recorded with the status At Home. The publisher notes that an animal's status stays At Home unless it is updated as deceased, lost, surrendered or impounded.

Also called: DACO animal data SA, Registered dogs by council South Australia, SA cats microchipped and desexed by council.

Part of Dogs and Cats Online, South Australia, 3 tables the publisher releases together: Dog and cat owners by council, sex and age, South Australia, Dog and cat attack and harassment incidents, South Australia.

Before you use it

What is in each row?: The number of dogs or cats recorded as at home on Dogs and Cats Online in one council area that share a sex, registration status, microchip status and desexing status.
What does registered mean here?: The publisher counts an animal as registered if its owner paid the registration fee for the financial year, or where the council charges no fee, confirmed or updated the animal's details. All others are unregistered.
Which council is it?: The council where the animal is housed, which may differ from the council where its owner lives.
Which year does the table cover?: The newest extract from Dogs and Cats Online, taken on 30 May 2025 at the first version. The publisher releases a new portal dataset each year, and each extract becomes a version here.

Made for agents

Connect your AI agent

Any agent that connects to publicdata.au/mcp can find this dataset, read its 7 fields, count and filter across all 1,982 rows and diff its versions. Every answer names the version and carries Environment and Water's attribution. No key.

Then ask it: What does Dogs and cats by council, registration, microchip and desexing, South Australia hold, and what changed in the newest version?

claude mcp add --transport http publicdata https://publicdata.au/mcp

One command. No key, no account, no sign-up.

https://publicdata.au/mcp

Streamable HTTP. Cursor, VS Code or any client that connects to a remote MCP server.

Using https://publicdata.au/llms.txt, how many people died on Queensland roads in 2025, by month?

For an assistant that reads the web and has no connector.

ExploreChart every row in your browser

A dashboard over every row. Click to filter, add panels, share a link or embed a frame.

Query APIFilter and count from a URL

aggregate?group=council&metric=sum.animals&species=eq.Dog

Dogs on the register by council where they are housed, most first: 36,812 CITY OF ONKAPARINGA, 20,992 CITY OF PLAYFORD, 20,652 CITY OF SALISBURY, 18,293 CITY OF TEA TREE GULLY.

Download it as Excel, CSV, JSON and 6 more formats

Pick a format and a version. Excel is picked first because it opens in the tools most offices have. The URL is yours to keep. A dated version never changes.

Format

Version "Latest" redirects to the newest version and will change when the publisher releases again. A dated version never changes.

https://publicdata.au/d/sa-dogs-cats-registered-animals/latest/data.xlsx

Download

In your own tools

Use it in Excel, R, Python and more

Excel and Power BI read the CSV from its address and refresh from it. The R and Python packages take any dataset on this site by its slug, so a new dataset needs no new release. The DuckDB file attaches read-only over HTTPS, and a query reads only the blocks it touches.

The dated URL in the code never changes. https://publicdata.au/d/sa-dogs-cats-registered-animals/latest/ redirects to the newest version.

https://publicdata.au/d/sa-dogs-cats-registered-animals/latest/data.csv

In Excel choose Data, then From Web, and paste this address. Excel keeps it, so Refresh All reads the newest version. A sheet holds about a million rows; past that, load the query to the Data Model.

https://publicdata.au/d/sa-dogs-cats-registered-animals/latest/data.csv

In Power BI Desktop choose Get data, then Web, paste this address and choose Anonymous when asked how to sign in. A scheduled refresh reads the same address, so the report follows each new version.

library(publicdataau)
df <- pd_read("sa-dogs-cats-registered-animals")
pd_attribution(df)

install.packages("publicdataau"). pd_read() fetches the version's Parquet file; pd_rows() and pd_aggregate() ask the query API instead, and pd_connect() attaches the DuckDB file.

import publicdata_au as pd_au
df = pd_au.read("sa-dogs-cats-registered-animals")
df.attrs["publicdata"]["attribution"]

pip install "publicdata-au[pandas]". read() fetches the version's Parquet file; rows() and aggregate() ask the query API, and connect() attaches the DuckDB file.

INSTALL httpfs; LOAD httpfs;
ATTACH 'https://publicdata.au/d/sa-dogs-cats-registered-animals/v/2025-07-04/data.duckdb' AS sa_dogs_cats_registered_animals (READ_ONLY);
SELECT species, count(*) FROM sa_dogs_cats_registered_animals.records GROUP BY 1 ORDER BY 2 DESC;

The DuckDB file attaches read-only over HTTPS and only the blocks a query touches are read. Parquet works the same way: FROM read_parquet(url).

const res = await fetch("https://publicdata.au/api/v1/datasets/sa-dogs-cats-registered-animals/aggregate?group=council&metric=sum.animals&species=eq.Dog");
const { rows, publicdata } = await res.json();
console.log(rows, publicdata.attribution);

The query API answers a page on any site as well as Node, with no key. It returns the rows and the attribution the licence asks for.

What is in it

Column names are made snake_case and the publisher's original header is kept beside each one. Blank cells are null. Nothing is added, removed, ranked or summarised.

Field	Type	Publisher's header
council	string	Council
species	string	AnimalSpecies
sex	string	Gender
registration_status	string	RegistrationStatus
microchipped	boolean	Microchipped
desexed	boolean	Desexed
animals	integer	Count

Download this table as a data dictionary (Excel), or read it as a Frictionless Table Schema at schema.json.

A sample of 10 rows

The largest counts, largest first, with cats and dogs in turn. A blank cell is shown as null.

council	species	sex	registration_status	microchipped	desexed	animals
CITY OF ONKAPARINGA	Dog	Female	Registered	true	true	13927
CITY OF ONKAPARINGA	Cat	Female	Registered	true	true	3115
CITY OF ONKAPARINGA	Dog	Male	Registered	true	true	13677
CITY OF ONKAPARINGA	Cat	Female	Unregistered	true	true	2764
CITY OF SALISBURY	Dog	Female	Registered	true	true	7201
CITY OF ONKAPARINGA	Cat	Male	Registered	true	true	2711
CITY OF SALISBURY	Dog	Male	Registered	true	true	7034
CITY OF ONKAPARINGA	Cat	Male	Unregistered	true	true	2528
CITY OF PORT ADELAIDE ENFIELD	Dog	Male	Registered	true	true	6770
CITY OF PLAYFORD	Cat	Female	Registered	true	true	2335

The first row as JSON

As it appears in data.json.

GET https://publicdata.au/d/sa-dogs-cats-registered-animals/latest/data.json
{
  "council": "ADELAIDE HILLS COUNCIL",
  "species": "Cat",
  "sex": "Female",
  "registration_status": "Unregistered",
  "microchipped": false,
  "desexed": true,
  "animals": 1
}

Query it without downloading

The query API returns only the rows you ask for, as JSON, NDJSON or CSV, from the same typed rows as the files. It needs no key. Build a query here and run it, then copy the URL or the code into your own work.

Try rows or aggregate for this dataset. The query builder needs JavaScript.

How filters work

Each filter is field=operator.value in the query string, and every filter must match. A number or date field compares as a number or date, and a text field compares as text. Values are case-sensitive except with ilike. Prefix not. to negate a filter, as not.eq.value.

Operator	What it matches
eq.value	Equal to the value.
neq.value	Not equal to the value. A blank cell does not match.
gt.value	Greater than the value.
gte.value	Greater than or equal to the value.
lt.value	Less than the value.
lte.value	Less than or equal to the value.
like.text	Matches a pattern where * stands for any run of characters. Case-sensitive.
ilike.text	The same as like, ignoring case.
in.(a,b,c)	Equal to any value in the list. A value cannot contain a comma.
is.null	Blank in the source, or suppressed by the publisher.

Parameter	What it does
select	Fields to return, comma-separated. Every field when absent.
order	field.asc or field.desc, comma-separated. The publisher's row order when absent.
limit	Rows per page, 1 to 10,000. 100 when absent.
offset	Rows to skip. The next URL in each answer sets it for you.
group	On aggregate, fields to group by, comma-separated.
metric	On aggregate, count, sum.field, avg.field, min.field or max.field, comma-separated. count when absent.
format	json, ndjson or csv. JSON carries the provenance header, and the others carry it in response headers.

Without a version the API answers from the newest loaded version, and that answer changes when the publisher releases again. Put versions/<date>/ before rows or aggregate for an answer that never changes. /api/v1/datasets/<slug>/versions lists the loaded versions. The 1 newest version is loaded; versions lists them.

The API allows 60 requests in 10 seconds from one address. Above that it answers 429 for 10 seconds with a Retry-After header, a RateLimit-Policy header and a JSON body that gives the limit. Every API answer carries the same RateLimit-Policy. A client should wait the Retry-After seconds, or read the files, which have no limit. openapi.json describes this dataset's query paths for client generators and agents.

https://publicdata.au/mcp is a remote MCP server over Streamable HTTP with the same tools, defined in the same place, so a tool added to the pages is added here too. It needs no key and no account. The row tools are held to the query API's limit of 60 queries in 10 seconds from one address, and each call is two queries because it also counts the matching rows. Add it to Claude Code with claude mcp add --transport http publicdata https://publicdata.au/mcp, add the URL in Claude as a custom connector, or give it to any client that connects to remote MCP servers. Each queryable dataset is also a resource at https://publicdata.au/d/<slug>/fields.json, which lists its fields with their types, the publisher's descriptions, their ranges and the values they hold, so an agent can read a dataset's shape before it writes a query.

Smaller files

The same rows split by a field, one JSON file each. Each file carries the same provenance header.

By species (2 files)

Cat Dog

by/species/index.json lists every file with its row count.

What changed

One version for every release the publisher has made since this site started following the dataset. The date is the day the file changed on the portal.

2025-07-04
1,982 rows7 fieldsxlsxe35f41941f1f

versions.json · changes.json · history.tar.zst (9.8 KB, every version's Parquet and manifest)

Questions

How do I download Dogs and cats by council, registration, microchip and desexing as a CSV file?

Open https://publicdata.au/d/sa-dogs-cats-registered-animals/latest/data.csv. It redirects to the newest dated version, which is https://publicdata.au/d/sa-dogs-cats-registered-animals/v/2025-07-04/data.csv today. The same path serves Excel, JSON, Parquet, SQLite, DuckDB, NDJSON, Arrow. A dated URL never changes, so use it when the file must stay the same.

Can I open Dogs and cats by council, registration, microchip and desexing in Excel?

Yes. https://publicdata.au/d/sa-dogs-cats-registered-animals/v/2025-07-04/data.xlsx is a workbook with the 1,982 rows on a records sheet, the field list on a second sheet and the provenance on a third. The CSV also opens in Excel. https://publicdata.au/d/sa-dogs-cats-registered-animals/v/2025-07-04/data.csv.gz is the CSV at about a tenth of the size.

How often is Dogs and cats by council, registration, microchip and desexing updated?

Environment and Water releases it yearly. This site checks the portal every week and adds a dated version when the file changes.

Can I use Dogs and cats by council, registration, microchip and desexing commercially?

Yes. CC BY 4.0 allows commercial use, redistribution and derived works as long as the attribution is kept. The attribution string is in this page's side column and inside every file.

Is this the official source for Dogs and cats by council, registration, microchip and desexing?

No. The publisher is Department for Environment and Water, and its page is https://data.sa.gov.au/data/dataset/dogs-and-cats-online-data-2024-2025. This site republishes the publisher's file without changing its content. The original sits beside every version as source.xlsx with its SHA-256, so the two can be compared.

How do I get only the rows for one species?

Every version has one JSON file per value of species, 2 files in the current version, listed with row counts at https://publicdata.au/d/sa-dogs-cats-registered-animals/v/2025-07-04/by/species/index.json. For example https://publicdata.au/d/sa-dogs-cats-registered-animals/v/2025-07-04/by/species/dog.json holds the 1,073 rows where species is Dog.

What this site did to the data. Cells were typed, headers were renamed and the encoding was made UTF-8. Rows were left alone. The publisher's file sits beside every version as source.xlsx so the change can be checked.

The publisher releases Dogs and Cats Online, South Australia as 3 files at once, so all 3 tables here share a version date.

Attribution and citation

The licence requires the publisher's attribution. We ask that you also name publicdata.au and link to the version you used.

Department for Environment and Water, Government of South Australia, Dogs and Cats Online Data, https://data.sa.gov.au/data/dataset/dogs-and-cats-online-data-2024-2025, accessed 3 October 2026, licensed under CC BY 4.0. Serialised and versioned by National Digital at publicdata.au, https://publicdata.au/d/sa-dogs-cats-registered-animals/v/2025-07-04/

The attribution alone is inside every file. Harvard is the author-date form a report or a brief asks for. Paste the HTML on a web page so the links carry.

Licence record

Department for Environment and Water states the licence, CC BY 4.0, on its own page, which was read and recorded here on 1 October 2026.

Every fetch reads the licence again and stops when it has changed. The fetch that made version 2025-07-04 read it from data.sa.gov.au on 3 October 2026.

Also published on

Hugging Faceload_dataset("National-Digital/sa-dogs-cats-registered-animals")
Kagglewith a starter notebook
ZenodoDOI 10.5281/zenodo.23116537

Each copy carries the same attribution and links back to this page.

For agents and tools

datapackage.jsonFrictionless data package pointing at the latest version
schema.jsonTable Schema for every field
schema.xlsxthe same field list as an Excel data dictionary
versions.jsonevery version with date, rows, fields and hash
changes.jsondiff for every consecutive pair
manifest.jsonwhere the bytes came from and when
Query APIfiltered rows and counts without a download
openapi.jsonOpenAPI 3.1 for this dataset's query paths
explore/charts and dashboards in the browser, shareable and embeddable
index.mdthis page as Markdown

This page carries a schema.org Dataset record and is listed in /.well-known/ard.json and /catalog.json.

Source

Department for Environment and Water publishes this table on data.sa.gov.au. Questions about the content go to the publisher. Questions about the files here go to corrections.

Fetched 3 October 2026. Source SHA-256 e35f41941f1f359d…

Improve this dataset

This page is built from register/sa-dogs-cats-registered-animals.yaml on GitHub. Anyone can propose a fix to it, such as a clearer description or a field the publisher renamed, as a pull request.

Report a file that differs from the publisher's · How to contribute