Most Dog-Friendly Cities: The Bark Score

We crunched the numbers to determine the most dog-friendly cities in America. Using census statistics, local business information and our own data, we rated communities on a 100-point scale — creating the Bark Score.

Most Dog-Friendly Metro Areas in the U.S.

Ranking	City	Bark Score
1	Vallejo / Fairfield / Napa, CA	100
2	Boston, MA / NH	99
3	Monmouth / Ocean, NJ	97
4	Boulder / Longmont, CO	97
5	Nassau / Suffolk, NY	96
6	Medford / Ashland, OR	95
7	Oakland, CA	93
8	Portland, OR / Vancouver, WA	93
9	Bridgeport, CT	92
10	Austin / San Marcos, TX	92

Most Dog-Friendly Large Cities

Ranking	City	Bark Score
1	Naples, FL	89
2	Santa Rosa, CA	81
3	Alpharetta, GA	78
4	Thousand Oaks, CA	77
5	Asheville, NC	76
6	Sarasota, FL	76
7	Boulder, CO	76
8	Fort Myers, FL	76
9	Charleston, SC	75
10	Fremont, CA	74

Most Dog-Friendly Mid Size Cities

Ranking	City	Bark Score
1	Livermore, CA	82
2	Los Gatos, CA	81
3	Apex, NC	80
4	Walnut Creek, CA	78
5	Lutz, FL	76
6	Golden, CO	75
7	Hoboken, NJ	74
8	Alameda, CA	74
9	Queen Creek, AZ	74
10	Dublin, CA	73

Most Dog-Friendly Small Cities

Ranking	City	Bark Score
1	West Hollywood, CA	85
2	El Segundo, CA	79
3	Erie, CO	77
4	Mustang, OK	77
5	Sahuarita, AZ	75
6	Eagle, ID	75
7	Hermosa Beach, CA	75
8	North Haven, CT	74
9	Albany, CA	74
10	Rancho Mirage, CA	73

Top Cities for Dog Walking

Ranking	City	Bark Score
1	New York, NY	100
2	Hoboken, NJ	93
3	San Francisco, CA	91
4	Chicago, IL	87
5	Somerville, MA	86
6	Oakland, CA	85
7	Livermore, CA	85
8	Alameda, CA	85
9	West Hollywood, CA	85
10	Los Angeles, CA	84

What is the Bark Score?

The Bark Score takes the available data on pet amenities, population, and more to come up with a single score for each city. Top cities earned gold, silver and bronze status.

gold

This top tier scored 80 or higher, ideal for life with canine companions.

silver

These places earned 60 to 79 points, giving pets and pet parents lots of options.

bronze

These communities scored a 50 to 69 and still do a solid job.

How did we calculate the Bark Score?

We love taking care of pets. But we also enjoy some number crunching. So we decided to figure out which cities, large or small, could be considered the most dog friendly.

To start, we chose four major categories that are important to pet parents. Then we broke the categories into several, distinct data points. We assigned a value to each data point, adjusting for population. Here are the main categories and data points we used:

Veterinarian Availability & Healthcare