Wichita ranked seventh-best city nationwide for dogs

It turns out Wichita’s a pretty good place to live if you’ve got furry family members.

The low cost of living in Wichita has led to it being named the seventh-best city in the country for dog owners, according to ValuePenguin.com, a consumer finance website.

The site’s rankings were based on four main categories: amenities and veterinary care, going out, walking and cost.

While Wichita maybe predictably was ranked low in the going out category – defined by the presence of pet-friendly hotels and businesses, dog parks and dog-friendly beaches – it was ranked fourth-best in the country for cost among the 155 cities included in the survey.

The study evaluated 155 large cities across 16 key data points, looking at everything from the number of veterinary facilities and dog parks in each city to pet insurance rates and cost of living.

Other Midwestern cities – Tulsa; Oklahoma City; Omaha; Springfield, Mo.; and Des Moines – also scored highly because of low cost of living and pet insurance.

Wichita scored lowest in the walking category, which takes into account a city’s overall walkability as well as ratio of city size to parkland and an average resident’s walking distance to a park.

To read the complete study, follow this link.

This story was originally published December 12, 2016 at 7:03 PM with the headline "Wichita ranked seventh-best city nationwide for dogs."