Saturday is National Rescue a Dog Day, and we hope that after reading this you’ll be on your way to your local kennels and animal shelters to do just that. How likely you and your neighbors are to do that might depend on which state you live in.

That’s why we dug into the numbers to see which states are the most canine-friendly when it comes to adopting. 

Bookies.com compiled two sets of data—Google Trends on the states that searched “dog adoption” from 2020 to now, and live outcomes (Adopted, returned to owner, etc.) of housing these furry friends divided by state population—to see which states are best at giving dogs new homes. Here’s what we found:

Head Out West for All Your Doggy Needs

This author has a friend who lives in Denver, and he recently adopted a dog. His favorite activity has since become hiking mountains and walking on trails with Murphy. 

After looking at the numbers, we sort of get it. Colorado ranked third highest in the Google Trends ranking (behind only Vermont and Rhode Island) and second highest in live outcomes (trailing only New Mexico). 

No other state came close to its score of 97, but the top of the list also gave us a peculiar trend that’s worth noting: Five of the top seven states are located out West.

Included in the list were Nevada (second), Arizona (third), New Mexico (fourth), and California (seventh). True, numbers 5 (Kansas) and 6 (Alaska) were some serious outliers, but the trend appears to be that scenic, typically warm climate environments are great for adopting dogs and then hanging out with them there.

The Northeast Likes the Idea of Adopting 

The internet has made it easy to go window shopping in just about any industry. Don’t you just love those “You left this in your cart” emails? 

Well, our research revealed that a few states in the Northeast love to look at dog adoptions but aren’t necessarily following through with it. Consider: Rhode Island and Vermont had the top two Google Trends searches for “dog adoption,” and New Hampshire was in fourth. 

Maine, Connecticut, and Massachusetts also made the top-10 for searches. Sounds great, right?

And yet, those six states ALL ranked in the bottom-15 for actual live outcomes. None of that even touches on Pennsylvania and New York, both of which were in the bottom-10 of live outcomes AND ranked average on Google Trends. Let’s pick up the pace out East, shall we?

These States Know What They Want and Go Get It

It’s always helpful to research your decisions before making them—especially when bringing a new pet home. But sometimes that gut instinct kicks in and you just need to go do it. That’s what we love about Mississippi, Tennessee, and Idaho.

Let’s start with the Rebels: No state searched “dog adoption” less than Mississippi, and yet they ranked sixth in the country in actual live outcomes. 

How great is that? No need for online searches. Go get that pup! Likewise, Tennessee had the sixth-fewest searches and yet finished 11th in actual live outcomes. It just means more in the SEC, apparently. As for Idaho, they had the eighth fewest searches but were third in actual live outcomes. Go figure.