Many Pets Allowed
by Michael Schaffer

The folks at DogFriendly.com have a new list out of America’s top 10 dog-friendly cities. A lot of them are places I visited while reporting One Nation Under Dog: There’s San Francisco (#1), where the right to let your dog romp in the park became a cause celebre in city politics; there’s Austin (#2), whose high-tech firms have nothing on the cool pet-toy manufacturer I spent a memorable week visiting; there’s Chicago (#7), where I attended an animal-law meeting at which panelists argued for treating wrongful pet-death lawsuits like wrongful child-death lawsuits; there’s San Diego (#8), where the local shelter has a popular coffee shop and even the Major League Baseball team plays in a stadium named PetCo Park; and there’s New York (#9), where I attended both Pet Fashion Week and the annual Chihuahua Christmas Party.

Alas, Philadelphia, where a waitress just brought Murphy his own personal bowl of water (”Saint Bernard sized,” she said) while I ate a bagel on a beautiful May Saturday morning, didn’t make the list. I love it here, but our reputation doesn’t necessarily lend itself to being either human-friendly or pet-friendly. That’s a bad rap, of course, but most locals wouldn’t admit to being the sweethearts they actually are.

(Hat tip: http://www.travelingthegreenway.com)