No regex required: 
$strg = qq[This has- some- d-a-she-s -in it];
%cnt = ();
@chrs = split('',$strg);
foreach (@chrs) {
  $cnt{$_}++;
}
print qq[$cnt{'-'}\n];

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In reply to Re: Re: Re: counting regex hits Benchamark by Doc Technical
in thread counting regex hits by Becky

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