The Most Pet-Friendly States

• Skip to Methodology to learn more about how we researched each state's animal protection laws.
• Skip to Understanding Our Data to discover the metrics driving our rankings.
• Skip to Editor’s Awards to learn more about our top performing states.

Overview of Research

Our team, lead by Katie Cleary, conducted extensive, state-specific legal research to rank every state. We first referenced two major publications that perform annual assessments of animal rights in each state: The Humane Society of the United States’ Humane Rankings and the Animal Legal Defense Fund’s (ALDF) U.S. Animal Protection Laws Rankings.

Katie Cleary Animal Rights Activist

Katie Cleary is a leader in the animal welfare community in Los Angeles, which has raised tens of thousands of dollars in support of crucial animal issues. She is the founder of Peace4Animals, World Animal News (WAN) and the documentary Give Me Shelter.

With guidance from these publications and expert, we identified 43 current animal rights laws protecting pets in various states, divided across six legal categories: Animal Cruelty, Animal Fighting, Animals in Research, Companion Animals, Exotic Pets and Puppy Mills. We looked at when laws were instated, how they were enforced and how they compared to similar laws in other states. Then we assessed each state on how well they ranked on those two previously mentioned rankings. Each state was graded on the six legal categories and the two rankings to calculate their overall score.

Methodology

Our expert

Katie Cleary is a leader in the animal welfare community in Los Angeles, which has raised tens of thousands of dollars in support of crucial animal issues. She is the founder of Peace4Animals, World Animal News (WAN) and the documentary Give Me Shelter, which Ms. Cleary created and executive produced (available on Netflix).

Katie also produced the “Diamonds Not Fur” Humanitarian Awards. The Gala raised funds in support of the West Hollywood “Fur Free” bill, which was then passed in Nov. 2011 and put into effect at the start of 2012.

How we selected the laws for our methodology

As we mentioned above, our team settled on 43 laws geared toward protecting pets on a state level. These laws were sourced from the Humane Society’s 2015 Humane State Rankings. While the Humane Society looks at every law protecting animals, including livestock and wildlife, our team, under the supervision of Katie Clary, narrowed the list down to the 43 laws specifically intended to protect pets. These laws, in essence, prohibit the abuse of pets and promote more humane treatment, whether that be from pet owners, shelters, researchers or businesses.

We discuss all 43 laws in the section Understanding Our Data.

How we scored our methodology

First, we broke all 43 laws into six legal categories: animal cruelty, animal fighting, animals in research, companion animals, exotic pets, and puppy mills. These six legal categories would be six of our eight core metrics.

To score each legal category, we looked at how many of the laws existed in each state. Every state received a score out of 10 for that category. For example, a state with all of the animal cruelty laws enacted would receive a 10/10 for that category.

We then looked at how each state performed in the 2015 rankings published by the Humane Society and the ALDF. Each state received a score out of 10 for how well they placed on each ranking. These two rankings would be the final two core metrics.

The six legal category scores were weighted as a total of 60% of the overall score, and each of the two rankings were 20%.

1. Animal Cruelty Prevention (10%)
2. Animal Fighting Prevention (10%)
3. Animal Research Abuse Prevention (10%)
4. Companion Animal Treatment (10%)
5. Exotic Pet Restriction (10%)
6. Puppy Mill Restriction (10%)
7. US Animal Law Protection Ranking (20%)
8. 2015 Humane Society Ranking (20%)

For example, our top state, Illinois, finished with these core metric scores:

1. Animal Cruelty – 10/10
2. Animal Fighting – 10/10
3. Animals in Research – 8.5/10
4. Companion Animals – 9.4/10
5. Exotic Pets – 5.5/10
6. Puppy Mills – 8.9/10
7. ALDF’s Rankings – 10/10
8. Humane Society Rankings – 8.6/10

After applying the weights, Illinois’ final score was 9.00; the highest score amongst all states, making it our #1.

In the event of ties, we looked at each state’s total number of laws protecting animals as well as the rate and number of laws the state had passed over the last five years, indicating a legislature actively invested in furthering animal rights.

Drawbacks of our methodology

The major drawback of our approach is that it is strictly focused on the legal protection of pets. Our attempts to cover subjects like pets access to state and local parks, state and city walking scores or state-specific veterinarian expenses came up short. What little data is available tends to be underreported and highly subjective.

Favoring states for great dog parks or high walkability scores skews our rankings toward dog owners; ranking quality of life for pets in urban, suburban or more rural states ignores the preferences of diverse pet owners ― we could go on and on. Instead, we focused on what we felt represented the shared values of great pet owners: laws protecting the safety and wellbeing of pets.

Understanding Our Data

Learn about our legal research

Editor's Awards

With the most laws in place against animal cruelty and harsh penalties for offenders, Illinois is our consensus pet friendliest state.

Illinois is rightfully thought as one of the nation’s most progressive states for animal rights, notably taking the top spot on the ALDF rankings for eight years running. Illinois is best known for pursuing animal abusers to the full extent of its state laws, which means a felony-level sentence for crimes like neglect, cruelty and animal fighting, amongst others. In addition, most sentences call for offenders to pay for damages done to an animal as well as mandatory counseling.

Drawbacks:

• Greyhound racing remains legal in Illinois.
• Currently no registry of known animals abusers, nor formal laws preventing former animal abusers from future ownership.

Ranking Results:

• Animal Cruelty – 10/10
• Animal Fighting – 10/10
• Animals in Research – 8.5/10
• Companion Animals – 9.4/10
• Exotic Pets – 5.5/10
• Puppy Mills – 8.9/10
• ALDF’s Rankings – 10/10
• Humane Society Rankings – 8.6/10

On top of finishing 7th overall, Virginia has the most laws in place protecting companion animals.

In our assessment, Virginia stood out for having laws in all but one of our companion animal categories, meaning the state has incredibly stringent measures in place to support its shelters and the euthanasia of shelter animals. Virginia also has a tough suite of animal fighting and exotic pet laws. In 2015, the Humane Society praised Virginia for its efforts to prevent in-state pet stores from sourcing puppies from “some of the worst puppy mills in the United States.”

Drawbacks:

• Virginia does not require convicted animal abusers to receive counseling.
• The consumption of dog and cat meat in Virginia is not restricted.

Ranking Results:

• Animal Cruelty – 7.4/10
• Animal Fighting – 7.0/10
• Animals in Research – 5.8/10
• Companion Animals – 10/10
• Exotic Pets – 4.6/10
• Puppy Mills – 9.2/10
• ALDF’s Rankings – 6.4/10
• Humane Society Rankings – 9.3/10

Nevada leads the way in restricting and penalizing puppy mills.

While Nevada is noticeably lacking in some areas of the law, particularly in addressing animal cruelty and prohibiting exotic pets, the state’s puppy mill laws are some of the toughest in the nation. The state has established routine inspections of mills and has banned the inhumane environments that are all too common elsewhere; these efforts include prohibiting the stacking of cages and wire floors. Nevada also ratified at least 24 laws over the last five years, indicating the state is steadily becoming more and more progressive.

Drawbacks:

• Nevada has noticeably low enforcement for exotic pets and animal cruelty.
• No explicit prohibitions on the ownership of bears, big cats, primates or wolves.

Ranking Results:

• Animal Cruelty – 5.4/10
• Animal Fighting – 6.6/10
• Animals in Research – 8.4/10
• Companion Animals – 8.6/10
• Exotic Pets – 0.6/10
• Puppy Mills – 10/10
• ALDF’s Rankings – 5.6/10
• Humane Society Rankings – 6.6/10

West Virginia has passed 26 animal protection laws over the past five years, proving the state has a newfound commitment to animal rights.

West Virginia is a prime example of how a state can transform thanks to a committed legislature. In 2011, the Humane Society noted that West Virginia had only 20 laws in place to protect animal rights; today, there are at least 46 in effect, many of which serve as sweeping prohibitions on animal cruelty, exotic pets and puppy mills. While the state still has a ways to go, particularly in regards to far too lax dogfighting laws, passing an average of 6.5 new, vital animal rights laws a year suggests West Virginia could soon become a leader in animal rights.

Drawbacks:

• Enforcement of dogfighting remains a major problem in West Virginia, with one of the lowest levels of legal enforcement in the nation.
• Greyhound racing remains legal in the state.

Ranking Results:

• Animal Cruelty – 8.8/10
• Animal Fighting – 1.4/10
• Animals in Research – 5.3/10
• Companion Animals – 7.0/10
• Exotic Pets – 8.9/10
• Puppy Mills – 8.1/10
• ALDF’s Rankings – 9/10
• Humane Society Rankings – 6.2/10