Moving and your pets

Just recently my best friend and I (two older ladies) decided to rent a house together to cut expenses as two are cheaper then one. The problem was that between us, we have 6 dogs and a cat. There are apartments in Tucson that allow pets. I have lived in three apartment complexes since moving to Tucson 5 years ago. Some had high pet deposits and some didn't. There are even more houses, duplexes, condos and townhouses that will accept pets with or without a deposit, but asking a landlord to accept 6 dogs is stretching things.

To our surprise, the percentage of landlords who were willing to accept 6 dogs was about 50%. Granted we were looking at larger houses with fairly large yards (our own prerequisites), but six dogs with irresponsible owners could totally destroy a house no matter what size the yard is.

In all my years of renting (which has been the majority - I only owned one house for 8 years in my 35 years of being away from the nest), I've never had a problem in finding a place that allowed kids and dogs and cats and birds. At one time, when my daughter was around 8 and my son about 5, we had 3 cats, a dog and a bird. The landlord didn't even flinch. And in all those years, the kids and animals and I mostly lived in apartments without a yard or with a tiny condo/townhome size yard. We only lived in two houses in all that time.

You don't have to have a yard to have a healthy, happy dog. In fact, a yard is not a good place for a dog. What does the dog do in the yard? Just like us, they aren't going to exercise themselves without encouragement. Judging by the obesity problem in this country, people don't exercise, so why would you expect your dog to? What actually happens is the dog gets so bored and has so much pent up energy that it looks for avenues to release the frustration and energy. That means it digs, barks, fence fights, chews up your garden and generally becomes uncontrollable.

Instead of throwing your dog outside, take your dog for walks twice a day. Not only do they get the exercise they need, so do you. Take your dog to the dog park and stay off the benches. Get out there and play with your dog. Teach it tricks, teach it to fetch, play tug of war, but don't sit on your duff expecting the dog to exercise itself. After all, you aren't exercising and they take their cues from us. Even with other dogs in the dog park, most of them just stand around the benches the owners are sitting on with the occasional chasing of a new dog. I know, I spend 1 - 2 hours in the dog park nearly every day exercising myself and my dogs in addition to a 1/2 hour walk in the evening and a 1/2 hour run with the bicycle in the early morning. Granted, I don't have kids or a husband to take care of and I work mostly from home (except when out training others' dogs), but having kids and a husband is no excuse for your dog to not get enough exercise.

Think about it this way. If your dog gets 1/2 hour walk in the morning, or enough to tire it out, it will rest most of the day after eating it's breakfast. Then another 1/2 hour in the evening and you can curl up on the couch with the dog and watch the tube with no stress. If you don't take that hour of exercise, you spend the day yelling at the dog to get out of the garden or leave the roast alone, telling Jimmy and Alice to stop pulling the dog's tail, etc. How much energy are you expending in trying to control a frustrated dog as opposed to an hour of walking with him AND the kids. Everyone gets some exercise and the kids are calmer as well.

Moving and a lack of a yard are no excuse for getting rid of a dog. Do some research if you have to move. Become a responsible dog owner and get out there and walk !