Pet Pointers: Best Cities to Walk Your Dog

 

Walking your dog can be a walk in the park (literally), a dreaded chore on a cold morning, or a workout if your big red dog is named Clifford. Which cities are spot-on the most ideal for strolling with your pup? To mark National Walk Your Dog Month, LawnStarter ranked 2023’s Best Cities to Walk Your Dog. They compared the 200 biggest U.S. cities based on walkability, safety, pup-friendly trail access, and professional dog walking availability. See the 10 “top dog” cities and the 10 at the back of the pack below, followed by highlights and lowlights from the report.

Best Cities to Walk Your Dog Rank City 1 San Francisco, CA 2 Colorado Springs, CO 3 Glendale, CA 4 Portland, OR 5 Oakland, CA 6 Los Angeles, CA 7 San Diego, CA 8 Boise, ID 9 Fremont, CA 10 Naperville, IL Worst Cities to Walk Your Dog Rank City 1 Jackson, MS 2 Montgomery, AL 3 Memphis, TN 4 Little Rock, AR 5 Surprise, AZ 6 Augusta, GA 7 Detroit, MI 8 Kansas City, KS 9 Macon, GA 10 Springfield, MO

Highlights and Lowlights: Raising the Woof: A big round of a-paws goes to the West. Eight of our top 10 cities — such as San Francisco, Portland, Oregon, and Boise, Idaho — are in this region. Six are in California, perhaps why Snoop Dogg chose to build his dogghouse in the state. The West performed paw-rticularly well in Access and Quality metrics, thanks to numerous high-quality dog-friendly trails. Ruff Road Ahead: At the tail end of the ranking are mostly Southern cities. Jackson, Mississippi, finished last again this year, while Montgomery, Alabama (No. 199), and Memphis, Tennessee (No. 198), trailed just ahead. The region is neither the most walkable nor the most accessible to dogs. We didn’t factor in climate, but the sweltering heat of the South can be uncomfortable to a pup’s two-legged companion, too. Leave It to the Paw-fessionals: Florida makes it easy to unleash pet parents from dog walking duties. Four Sunshine State cities landed in the top 10 of our Professional Walking category (three of them in the top five).  Orlando leads the pack in this category, boasting an incredible 1,153 dog walkers per 100,000 two-legged residents. Miami came in second in dog walker access. Fort Lauderdale and Tampa both have slightly fewer dog walkers but fur more affordable rates.   Our full ranking is available here: https://www.lawnstarter.com/blog/studies/best-cities-walk-your-dog/  Can’t walk your dog around the neighborhood? Let your pup roam around your yard instead. Hire a LawnStarter pro to help you create a dog-friendly landscape.