Most Dog Friendly Cities & More of the Most Pet Friendly Cities

If there’s one thing nearly everyone has in common, it’s love of pets. Many pet owners would do almost anything to ensure they’re happy and healthy, and there’s a lot that goes into their care.

Where you and your furry friend lives can affect everything from pet budget to outdoor pet-friendliness and even health and wellness.

Places that offer favorable conditions for pets and their owners are attractive for this reason. So let’s take a look at the best cities for dogs, cats, and other pets on the map below.

View Most Dog Friendly Cities in a full screen map

Best Cities for Dogs’ Health & Wellness

The health and wellness of our puppers and other pets is of the utmost importance, which is why WalletHub weighted this category above the others.

For this category, per capita rates of veterinarians, trainers, dog-friendly restaurants, doggie daycares, and boarding establishments are taken into consideration, among others. Additionally, the pet-friendliness of the rental market, average home square footage, and strength of animal protection laws, along with others are also noted to determine the following most pet friendly cities:

  1. Laredo, Texas (100)
  2. Honolulu, Hawaii (99)
  3. Detroit, Michigan (98)
  4. Milwaukee, Wisconsin (97)
  5. Stockton, California (96)
  6. Columbus, Ohio (95)
  7. Norfolk, Virginia (94)
  8. Toledo, Ohio (93)
  9. Anchorage, Alaska (92)
  10. Henderson, Nevada (91)

When it comes to health and wellness, Laredo is the best city for dogs and other pets (it’s also one of the cities with the best drivers, important when driving pets to and from parks and other places). Laredo happens to be the only Texan city with top marks, though that’s not uncommon in this case.

Of the top 10 dog friendly cities, only Ohio boasts two: both Columbus and Toledo rank highly in pet health and wellness. While there aren’t many states with two top pet cities, the Midwest region is where four are located: the two Ohio cities along with Detroit and Milwaukie.

Now let’s see how these cities hold up in a different pet-friendly category: budget.

Top Pet Friendly Cities on a Budget

When it comes to the best cities for dogs, cats, and other pets, budget may also be top of mind. Pet owners can spend between hundreds to thousands of dollars on their furry friends each year.

So you can see why places that offer favorable conditions for pets and their owners are attractive. Let’s take a look at the U.S. cities with the most beneficial pet budget: vet cost, minimum pet-care provider rate per visit, and dog insurance premium below.

  1. Fremont, California (100)
  2. San Francisco, California (99)
  3. Santa Ana, California (98)
  4. Irvine, California (97)
  5. Los Angeles, California (96)
  6. New York, New York (95)
  7. Anaheim, California (94)
  8. Long Beach, California (93)
  9. San Diego, California (92)
  10. Washington, D.C. (91)

Some of the most dog-friendly cities in the world are in California. Specifically, Fremont is ranked the best among pet budget, closely followed by several other South coastal cities in the Golden State.

In total, of the top 10 most pet friendly cities in the U.S. in regards to budget, eight are located in California. N.Y.C. and D.C. are also notable for their favorable budget conditions for both pets and their owners.

And while not in the top 10, Chicago, Illinois, closely follows with a pet budget score of 90. To view top cities in the third category, outdoor friendliness, sort the map as such.

Most Pet Friendly Cities Overall

Taking all three pet-friendliness categories (pet health and wellness, budget, and outdoor pet-friendliness) into account, you can see where each of the 100 cities falls with a total score on the map. Or, here’s a summary of the top 10 most pet friendly cities overall:

City State Total Score Pet Budget Pet Health & Wellness Outdoor Pet-Friendliness
Scottsdale AZ 63.28 71 1 3
Tampa FL 62.25 42 5 13
Orlando FL 62.2 31 3 34
Las Vegas NV 60.48 32 34 1
Birmingham AL 59.81 9 15 77
St. Louis MO 58.32 18 16 39
St. Petersburg FL 58.31 42 9 29
Cincinnati OH 58 19 20 38
San Diego CA 57.28 92 2 8
New Orleans LA 57.22 34 10 44

And for less house-friendly yet still lovable furry friends, be sure to check out our map of the national animals of every country.

A Map of Paid Vacation Days by Country

Around the world, employees struggle with their work-life balance—especially now that many companies have realized the benefits of remote work. Paid vacation days and public holidays certainly help the issue, though paid time off varies greatly.

Some countries have laws providing ample minimum annual paid vacation and holiday days. But others offer none or leave it up to employers.

Which countries offer the most PTO? And how do they compare to those with the least? Let’s find out on the map below, which shows paid vacation days, paid public holidays, and the total combined, including UK vacation days and vacation time in Europe.

View Paid vacation days by country in a full screen map

Countries with Most Vacation Time

Countries’ paid vacation days range from zero (seven countries) to 31 days (just one). These are the minimum mandatory vacation days for an employee with one year of service to the same employer. Let’s start on a positive note with the countries that offer the most paid vacation days:

  • Andorra – 31 paid vacation days per year
  • Algeria – 30
  • Bahrain – 30
  • Burkina Faso – 30
  • Equatorial Guinea – 30
  • Kuwait – 30
  • Panama – 30
  • Peru – 30
  • United Arab Emirates – 30
  • Malta – 27

These ten countries offer at least 27 paid vacation days, though many more—like Andorra—provide up to 31 days each year. Andorra even goes so far as to mandate that one period of leave must last two weeks or more, to allow an uninterrupted rest period for employees.

In addition to Andorra, employees in Malta are entitled to quite a few paid vacation days, making the average vacation time in Europe (at least, Southern Europe) seem impressive.

However, more countries located in the Persian Gulf’s Arab states provide the most paid vacation days: Bahrain, Kuwait, and United Arab Emirates tie for the second-highest number. And it’s the same case for Africa’s Algeria, Burkina Faso, and Equatorial Guinea.

Ironically, while Burkina Faso boasts 30 days of paid vacation days, nearby Nigeria offers employees far less PTO, as we’ll see below.

Zero PTO Countries

When it comes to the least paid vacation days, seven countries have zero mandatory days:

  • Kiribati
  • Marshall Islands
  • Micronesia
  • Nauru
  • Palau
  • Tonga
  • United States

The U.S. certainly stands out among the rest of these smaller island countries. Notably, Tonga’s government is working to create laws for paid vacation time. But there’s still no federal or state statutory minimum paid vacation (or paid public holidays) in the United States.

Instead, paid leave is at the discretion of the employers. Reportedly, 77% of private employers offer paid vacation to their employees, though some employers still offer no vacation at all. The average number of paid vacation days for full-time employees is 10 days after 1 year of service, 14 days after 5 years, 17 days after 10 years, and 20 days after 20 years.

And while not zero, Taiwanese employees only earn 3 paid vacation days each year. Similarly, China, Nigeria, and the Philippines offer just five. Now let’s see how many countries provide paid public holidays.

Places for Plenty of Paid Public Holidays

In addition to vacation days, public holidays are also often paid. Of the countries that mandate paid public holidays (10 offer none), the average is 12.21 days. Let’s see which places are home to the most paid holidays on the following table.

Country Paid public holidays
Cambodia 27
Iran 27
Lebanon 22
Sri Lanka 20
Argentina 19
Azerbaijan 19
Suriname 18
Colombia 18
Hong Kong 17
Tanzania 17

Cambodia and Iran’s 27 paid public holidays are more than double the average. Along with Cambodia, employees in two more Asian countries (Sri Lanka and Hong Kong) can take paid holidays in the double-digits. Moreover, the three countries in South America (Argentina, Suriname, and Colombia) boast similar benefits.

For the countries with the least paid public holidays (hint: the U.S. makes another appearance), select the “Paid public holidays” group on the map and opt for the “0” range.

You can also see the Total paid leave (paid vacation days and paid public holidays combined) when you check out that group. See what insights map grouping can offer you when you make your own map at batchgeo.com.

Import or Capture Web Data for Your Spreadsheet with Time-Saving Tools

Google famously wants to organize all the world’s information—and there’s a lot out there. You could spend many hours exploring just Wikipedia, which is a treasure trove of facts, figures, and miscellany. It’s no surprise when you come across a data table that piques your interest. In fact, there is a lot of open data trapped in HTML tables.

Often, you’ll want to take your research a step further and save the table to an ideal place for storing, manipulating, and analyzing data: a spreadsheet. But copy and pasting each row or even entire tables can be time-consuming, especially if there are multiple tables on the same topic you want to capture.

Instead, you can make better use of your time when you opt for tools that all but automate the task of grabbing data from the web and transferring it to Excel or Google Sheets.

In this post, we’ll highlight a few ways to capture data from the web. You can import external web data right in Excel, or use a browser extension to save time when grabbing web data. So let’s get started.

Get External Data to Excel: Web Import

Excel is the favorite spreadsheet tool of many for data visualization and analysis. But what if there’s data you want to manipulate that’s not yet in your spreadsheet? Whether it’s a table from an external source like the web or any other external source, the spreadsheet tool makes it easy to automatically import data into Excel.

While this method doesn’t work, when the option is available, it’s one of the easiest ways of importing into Excel.

  1. Navigate to the Data tab in Excel and click Get Data
  2. Select the data source you wish to import (From Web for this tutorial)
  3. Paste in the URL of your desired webpage and press the arrow near the specific table
    you want to import
  4. Click Import and identify a new Excel workbook or existing one

Other than pulling from the web, you can do the same in Excel From Access, From Text, From Other Sources, From SQL Server, or From XML Data Import—depending on your device. But for those without this Excel option, you can still copy a table to Excel or another spreadsheet, too.

Browser Extensions Make It Easy to Copy a Table from Website to Excel

No one wants to manually copy and paste rows and columns of data to a spreadsheet. Even if you can do so with an entire table, there might be several related tables you also want.

To copy one or more web tables, you’ll want a web extension like Table Capture or plug in to help you export HTML table to Excel. There’s often a free version of the most helpful browser extensions.

Free:

  • Copy table data to the clipboard
  • Export table to Google Sheets
  • Edit table data before exporting

We find the above free options suitable for our data collecting needs, most commonly copying the table data to the clipboard and pasting it into our preferred spreadsheet tool: Google Sheets vs Excel: 3 Reasons Google Is the Supreme Spreadsheet Tool.

But the availability of the Pro version is useful for those with the following use cases:

  • Download table as an Excel (.xlsx) file
  • Download table as a CSV file
  • Screenshot table (saves as a .png image)
  • Export table to Office 365
  • Copy to clipboard as Markdown
  • Publish and share this table

In addition to the varying gathering methods, Table Capture Chrome enables you to Select all of the tables on a given page or Clear selection. Preview helps assure you’ve chosen the right table. Here are step-by-step directions on how to use it:

  1. Add the Table Capture Chrome extension
  2. Navigate the webpage you wish to pull a data table from
  3. Click the extension in the upper right-hand corner of your browser
  4. Identify your desired table
  5. Click the icon that represents the action you want to take
  6. Paste to your sheet if necessary

And there you have it! Once your data is in your spreadsheet, you’ll want to adequately prepare it for a map by removing links and other data clean-up tasks.

Gain Access to Data Blocked from Capture

For the occasional website that prevents you from easily grabbing their data with a browser extension that copies tables, there are, of course, workarounds.

But before resorting to an add-on like Enable Copy or Absolute Enable Right Click & Copy, be sure to check the site’s terms and conditions. Many have their reasons for not making their data accessible.

If you ultimately decide to bypass them, it’s always better to do so when you’re working on a project for your personal use rather than marketing or other commercial use.

Map Your Newly Gathered Data

No matter the source, we’ve shown how easy it is to grab any desired information with the help of different tools. Now the only thing left to do is map your data, going from this:

To an easier to visualize map:

View Mapped List of Captive Orcas in a full screen map

Of course, there are several ways to do so (we listed popular methods in our Introduction to Map Making on the Web. But perhaps the easiest way to map your data is with a web-based geocoder like ours. So let’s take a look at the next steps.

  1. Open your spreadsheet
  2. Select (Ctrl+A or Cmd+A) and copy (Ctrl+C or Cmd+C) your data
  3. Open your web browser and navigate to batchgeo.com
  4. Click on the location data box with the example data in it, then paste (Ctrl+V or Cmd+V) your own data
  5. Check to make sure you have the proper location data columns available by clicking “Validate and Set Options”
  6. Select the proper location column from each drop-down
  7. Click “Make Map” and watch as the geocoder performs its process

Get started mapping your data today with BatchGeo.