Pet Pointers: Best Dog Park Cities

 

Dog parks can be a real treat for you and your pup: While Spot runs and tussles, you can pal around with fellow dog lovers. Not every U.S. city with pooch-friendly green spaces is up to snuff, though, so which ones stand out? LawnStarter rounded up 2022’s Best Dog Park Cities to mark July as National Lost Pet Prevention Month, reminding Americans to keep an eye on their furry friends when outside. They compared 93 of the biggest U.S. cities based on dog park access, quality, and climate.  Check out the top dogs of our ranking and the runts of the litter below, followed by some highlights and lowlights from the report.

Leaders of the Pack Rank City 1 San Francisco, CA 2 Henderson, NV 3 Portland, OR 4 Tampa, FL 5 Las Vegas, NV 6 Oakland, CA 7 Irving, TX 8 Reno, NV 9 Norfolk, VA 10 Lubbock, TX Runts of the Litter Rank City 1 Cleveland, OH 2 Columbus, OH 3 Newark, NJ 4 Spokane, WA 5 Winston-Salem, NC 6 Garland, TX 7 Tulsa, OK 8 Durham, NC 9 Plano, TX 10 Irvine, CA

Highlights and Lowlights: Weiner Takes All: For the second year in a row, San Francisco leads the pack in our Best Dog Park Cities ranking. Pups (purportedly) outnumber children in the Golden City, so it’s no surprise that this alpha city would invest heavily in green space for one of its biggest pawpulations. In fact, San Francisco outranks 90 cities in dog parks per 100,000 (two-legged) residents. Best in Show: Some of the top acts in Vegas are not on stage but in the metro’s canine-friendly green spaces. Ample dog park access is the ultimutt trick with Las Vegas finishing No. 5 and neighboring Henderson finishing in second place.  Another Nevada city, Reno (No. 8), shared the spotlight for its high rank in our Quality category. Reno’s pup-welcoming grounds are the fifth highest-rated, on average, and only four other cities have bigger percentages of top-rated parks. A Mixed Doggy Bag: Be careful where you take Bailey in Ohio — you can have either a pawesome experience or a ruff time. Toledo finished 11th, thanks to rave reviews from dog park visitors. For more highly rated park options, head to Cincinnati. The Queen of the West is also the queen of Access (No. 34) among Ohio’s biggest cities. But beware these two bad dogs: Columbus landed in second-to-last place and Cleveland at the very bottom. These two earned some of the lowest scores in the Quality category, and Cleveland offers the fewest dog-friendly parks of all 93 cities. The full ranking and analysis are available here: https://www.lawnstarter.com/blog/studies/best-dog-park-cities/