That's nice

Austin rolls out the welcome mat as America's nicest city in new ranking

Austin is officially the nicest city in the U.S.

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For years, Austin has starred on all sorts of lists — best cities for millennials, best cities for tech workers, best places to live, and so forth. Now, we’ve earned perhaps the nicest accolade a city can receive.

Language-learning app Preply surveyed more 1,500 residents of the country’s largest metropolitan areas to determine which cities are home to the politest people and the rudest people. Fortunately, Austin topped the list of the polite cities (or, put another way, the least rude ones).

“From our results, it seems that Austinites enjoy a laid-back, friendly city atmosphere, even as the city continues to grow rapidly,” Preply observes. “In general, the state of Texas has a reputation for politeness and friendliness, along with the rest of the South, underscoring the stereotype of Southern hospitality. It makes sense that five of the most polite U.S. cities are concentrated in the Lone Star State.”

Following Austin on the list of the politest cities are:

San Diego, No. 2
Fort Worth, No. 3
Nashville, No. 4
Indianapolis, No. 5

El Paso appears at No. 13 on the nice list, with San Antonio at No. 14 and Dallas tied at No. 15 with Charlotte, North Carolina.

At the top of Preply’s ranking of the rudest cities is Philadelphia. Houston lands at No. 10.

Preply’s list of the most polite cities differs from one published earlier this year by Condé Nast Traveler magazine. The publication’s annual Readers’ Choice Awards survey crowned Greenville, South Carolina, as the friendliest city in the U.S., with San Antonio at No. 4 and Austin at No. 10.

Meanwhile, a list released last year by Airbnb placed Austin at No. 7, Dallas at No. 9, and San Antonio at No. 10 among the country’s most hospitable cities.

Shelter to Service

Dripping Springs nonprofit trains service dogs rescued from shelters

Photo courtesy of KVUE

The group estimates that it's gotten more than 1,000 dogs out of the shelter system.

For the past 35 years, a service dog training nonprofit in Dripping Springs has transformed unwanted dogs into essential partners for Texans living with significant challenges.

Sheri Soltes, founder and CEO of Service Dogs, Inc., says the dogs they train help serve people with hearing or mobility disabilities. The canines also comfort those enduring traumatic events.

In a time where most animal shelters in Central Texas are over capacity, Service Dogs, Inc. is handing out second chances to pups with potential to make a difference in people’s lives.

“They're sort of like the cousins to guide dogs,” Soltes said. “Except we're unique because we get our dogs from animal shelters instead of having a breeding program. So we help the dog and we help the person.”

She says the nonprofit can’t adopt every dog because the pups must meet specific qualifications, narrowing down from their age to their temperament.

Soltes says dogs must be at least a year and a half old in order to be X-rayed to assess their health, must be extremely people-oriented and should be comfortable being in public settings.

She says Service Dogs, Inc. may bring back one out of 500 dogs in a shelter.

“We've probably trained well over a 1,000, probably closer to 1,200 dogs by this time over 36 years. Any dog that we adopt from a shelter, if it doesn't complete the training, we don't take it back to the shelter, will find it a good pet home. So, they're going to win either way with us,” Soltes said.

Depending on the pooches’ temperament and personality, they’ll be trained in any and all of four programs available.

Soltes says the nonprofit trains the canines to be hearing dogs that can alert people who are deaf or hard of hearing. They could be trained for people with mobility disabilities, learning to open and close doors or steady someone’s balance.

She says they also train dogs to work in areas devastated by catastrophic storms, in courthouses in the victim's assistance departments or with first responders struggling with their mental health.

“They're not always the right tool for every kind of job, but they're very, very helpful,” she said.

Read the full story and watch the video at KVUE.com.

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