Approximately 10000 per year, which is about equal to the number of human murder victims, and about ten times the number of humans killed by police (justifiably or not) each year.
There are about 4 times as many humans in the US as dogs: https://financesonline.com/number-of-dogs-in-the-us/
I really wish articles would make context numbers like this clear. I had to poke around. Judge for yourself whether this is an epidemic, but do so based on some numbers that provide some grounding.
Disclaimer: I found these numbers quickly and probably made some mistakes, but I don't think they are wildly off.