Three Florida cities — St. Petersburg, Tampa, and Orlando — have been ranked by a real estate website as among the most pet friendly in the United States. St. Petersburg was designated as the number one most pet friendly city in the country, along with Tampa at number five and Orlando at number 17.

Zumper, the website doing the rankings, calculated the scores for the 95 most pet-friendly cities across the country based on the all-important factor of “whether or not you can live with your furry best friend.” Gathering information from public records, websites like Yelp, and their own rental data, Zumper assigned points for how many apartments allow tenants to have pets, the cost of dog and cat insurance premiums, number of veterinarians in the area, pet stores, pet-friendly restaurants, dog parks and other park land, and number of days with pleasant weather.

Queso the Kitten. Photo credit: Sarah Rumpf.

With weather as a criteria, it’s no surprise to see Florida cities listed highly in the rankings. Top-ranked St. Petersburg won due to an especially high number of cat-friendly rental listings, plus “the high density of veterinarians, pet stores and pet restaurants in the area.” Tampa also had a high number of pet-friendly listings.

Other Florida cities included in the rankings were Miami at number 48 and Jacksonville at 91.

Summer is an excellent time to adopt a pet. Many shelters are overwhelmed this time of year with puppies and kittens, and often reduce or waive adoption fees. The American Humane Association has helpful advice about adopting a cat or dog on their website.

Photo credit: Ricardo Mangual via Flickr.

Follow Sarah Rumpf on Twitter: @rumpfshaker.

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