Tacoma outpaces Seattle in pet-friendliness ranking

As an April Fools’ joke, housing listing site Trulia announced a (joke) suite of online tools for pets to make a home search. But embedded in that joke is some real data: a ranking of the ten most pet-friendly metropolitan areas out of the country’s 100 largest cities.

The Seattle metro area, including Everett and Bellevue ranked a respectable ninth place, but Tacoma blew Seattle out of the Puget Sound at fifth.

The ranking is based on “pet scores,” which Trulia calculated based on the percentage of pet-friendly rentals, open park space, pet amenities like dog runs, and, of course, dog parks.

Seattle, lumped with Everett and Bellevue, scored 76.8, with 47 percent pet-friendly rentals and a high amount of pet amenities within households—but a surprisingly low park ranking.

Maps created by Trulia show the pet-friendliest spots in each area. By the looks of the Seattle map, it looks like Clyde Hill is really dragging us down.

Tacoma has fewer pet amenities and fewer dog parks than Seattle, but has us beat in pet-friendly park space. A whopping 65.4 percent of their rentals are pet-friendly, according to Trulia’s data.

The friendliest area, by Trulia’s calculations, is Denver, followed by San Diego. Portland, for anyone who was curious, has us beat, too: They rank fourth, just ahead of Tacoma.

• Ahead of the pack, Trulia announces listings for pets [Trulia]
• Mapping Seattle's Ten Best Dog Parks [CS]