By Jeff Sherman OnMilwaukee.com Staff Writer Published Nov 12, 2010 at 12:22 PM

I'll admit that we've done our part through the years to stoke the popularity of lists. Top this, best that. Lists get reads and they get passed on to friends, family and co-workers.  For media, lists work.  

Personally, I've also done my part to promote the appeal of the list. Whenever Milwaukee's mentioned in one, I write about it and then, usually, others pick it up and the list spreads. See, people love lists.

Well, people also love pets. Personally, I'm not a pet guy but I'm still interested in the latest list -- "Best U.S. cities to hire a pet sitter?". Yep, it exists. And, drum roll, Milwaukee is No. 1!  

Thanks to the fine folks at Sittercity.com, these types of things are ranked and our great city landed on top. Yep, need a dog sitter? Milwaukee is your town. 

Since Sittercity is a membership site, I found much of the buzz on the list via a blog at the San Francisco Chronicle's Web site (Thanks for the tip, Dean Amhaus).

Sittercity, by the way, is Chicago-based and is a pretty cool site. It says it's the "Web's leading parent-babysitter matchmaking site" and full of functionality and resources.  

But back to the list. As blogger Amelia Glynn at SFGate noted, "the list was compiled using criteria that included the number of job postings to the site, the hourly cost of a walker/sitter and the number of dog walkers and petsitters available in each market."

SFGate says Sittercity said this about Milwaukee, "Milwaukee has approximately 1,570 available sitters who are paid an average of $8.21 per visit — one of the most competitive dog walker/pet sitter rates in the country. The average national rate for a pet sitter is $10-15 per visit. (The average length of a visit is 20-30 minutes.)"

So there you have it, Milwaukee, another doggone list. Until next time, keep reading and we 'll keep listing.

Jeff Sherman OnMilwaukee.com Staff Writer

A life-long and passionate community leader and Milwaukeean, Jeff Sherman is a co-founder of OnMilwaukee.

He grew up in Wauwatosa and graduated from Marquette University, as a Warrior. He holds an MBA from Cardinal Stritch University, and is the founding president of Young Professionals of Milwaukee (YPM)/Fuel Milwaukee.

Early in his career, Sherman was one of youngest members of the Greater Milwaukee Committee, and currently is involved in numerous civic and community groups - including board positions at The Wisconsin Center District, Wisconsin Club and Marcus Center for the Performing Arts.  He's honored to have been named to The Business Journal's "30 under 30" and Milwaukee Magazine's "35 under 35" lists.  

He owns a condo in Downtown and lives in greater Milwaukee with his wife Stephanie, his son, Jake, and daughter Pierce. He's a political, music, sports and news junkie and thinks, for what it's worth, that all new movies should be released in theaters, on demand, online and on DVD simultaneously.

He also thinks you should read OnMilwaukee each and every day.