Any pet parent who has traveled with a dog knows some cities pull their weight and some leave you circling for a single pet-friendly hotel room. But the rankings hide a more useful insight than a simple leaderboard. When you look at what actually lands a city near the top, the best dog cities split into two very different types, and which one is right for you depends entirely on your dog. LawnStarter’s 2025 Best Cities for Dog Lovers study scored the 500 largest US cities across 37 metrics in five buckets, care, community, businesses, housing, and affordability, and the results make that split impossible to miss.
Two kinds of dog-friendly city
Read the top 10 and a pattern jumps out. One camp is the big-yard towns, smaller cities where dogs get square footage, quiet trails, and room to run. The other is the amenity hubs, denser cities that trade yard space for walkable streets, a vet on every corner, and a dog-friendly patio at every restaurant. A high-energy herding dog in an apartment may be miserable in a packed metro no matter how many dog parks it has, while a social city dog thrives on the foot traffic. Keep your own dog in mind as you read.
The 10 most dog-friendly cities of 2025
10. Bend, Oregon
A big-yard town through and through. Bend ranks 8th for dog-friendly businesses and 22nd for community, and its high-desert trail access is the real draw for an active dog. Affordability is the soft spot at 279th.
9. Raleigh, North Carolina
Raleigh balances the two camps better than most, landing 24th for housing and 87th for affordability, a rare combination, with solid care (34th). For a growing-family dog owner who wants a yard without a brutal cost of living, it is a sleeper pick.
8. Santa Monica, California
A pure amenity hub. Santa Monica ranks 3rd for community nationwide, with one of the most active dog-meetup scenes in the country, and a surprising 48th for affordability given the zip code. Yard space is not the pitch here; social life is.
7. Orlando, Florida
Orlando takes 3rd for care, meaning vets, emergency clinics, and pet services are dense and easy to reach, which matters more than scenery if your dog has medical needs. It slips on community (196th).
6. Wilmington, North Carolina
Wilmington ranks 6th in the nation for care and a strong 88th for housing, a coastal small city where you can find a dog-friendly rental and a good vet without a fight. Affordability sits mid-pack.
5. Santa Fe, New Mexico
The yard champion of the top tier. Santa Fe posts the 4th-largest average yard size in the study at 24,438 square feet, ranks 3rd for dog-friendly accommodations, and 5th for dog-friendly restaurants. The catch is affordability, where it ranks 430th.
4. New York, New York
The definitive amenity hub. New York is 1st in the country for both highly rated dog parks and pet stores, and 2nd for animal hospitals. There is no yard, but for a city dog, the density of parks, services, and sidewalk socializing is unmatched.
3. Scottsdale, Arizona
Scottsdale blends both camps: 11th for housing, 13th for businesses, and 6th for dog-friendly accommodations, with large average home square footage. It is the rare place offering both room at home and amenities out the door, which is why it has anchored the top of these rankings for years.
2. Asheville, North Carolina
Asheville earns a perfect 5.0 average dog-park rating (tied for 1st) and ranks 1st in the nation for dog-friendly restaurants per capita. The mountain-town trail access seals it. Affordability (258th) is the only real knock.
1. Frederick, Maryland
The 2025 winner, and a genuine all-rounder. A suburb of both Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, Frederick ranks 1st in the country for animal shelters per capita, 2nd for community, 2nd for nearby dog shows and training events, and 3rd for veterinarians per capita. It pairs the care-and-community strength of a big metro with the breathing room of a smaller city, which is exactly the balance that vaulted it past the usual sunbelt favorites.
What changed, and a few more fun facts
This is a different leaderboard than the one dog owners may remember. Frederick, Maryland, did not crack the top of earlier editions; its 2025 jump reflects LawnStarter’s expanded methodology, now 37 metrics instead of a handful, which rewards depth across care and community rather than a single standout stat. A few extras from the data: New York holds the most dog parks and pet stores nationwide, Santa Fe and Flower Mound, Texas, lead for big backyards, and across the board, 28 Southern cities landed in the top 50, the strongest regional showing in the study.
References
- LawnStarter. “2025’s Best Cities for Dog Lovers.” lawnstarter.com/blog/studies/best-cities-dog-lovers.
