Dogs and renting (Houston: apartments, leasing, condos) - Texas (TX) - City-Data Forum

jpgiordano · 05-18-2007, 02:06 PM

hello, My husband and I are relocating to Houston from Ny. We want to rent and check out all the areas before we jump in and buy a place. We have two large dogs and are concerned that apartments don't like large dogs. We would like a complex with a pool in the loop or not that far away from the loop. My husband will be working in downtown.

Thank you for any suggestions.

Wysiwyg · 05-18-2007, 03:46 PM

just posted this http://www.city-data.com/forum/houst...ide-610-a.html

Yetti0 · 05-19-2007, 08:38 PM

Animal rights are big here.. Hence animal planet is filmed in houston... Its not a matter of apartments don't like big dogs... Big dogs do not like apartments. why on earth would you have plural big dogs in a tiny apartment, or are you planning to lease 3,000 sq ft?

Houston has several dog parks for follks with apartments and dogs.. Just a reminder..we are very animal rights conscious here... Make sure your dogs have enough room.. they are not toys...

Our spca even visits apartments where there are complaints about too many pets or overly large pets for the space...

How many square feet are you leasing and how big are the dogs? Mastiffs?

Quote:

Originally Posted by jpgiordano

hello, My husband and I are relocating to Houston from Ny. We want to rent and check out all the areas before we jump in and buy a place. We have two large dogs and are concerned that apartments don't like large dogs. We would like a complex with a pool in the loop or not that far away from the loop. My husband will be working in downtown.

Thank you for any suggestions.

kfbolger · 06-12-2007, 12:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yetti0

Animal rights are big here.. Hence animal planet is filmed in houston... Its not a matter of apartments don't like big dogs... Big dogs do not like apartments. why on earth would you have plural big dogs in a tiny apartment, or are you planning to lease 3,000 sq ft?

Houston has several dog parks for follks with apartments and dogs.. Just a reminder..we are very animal rights conscious here... Make sure your dogs have enough room.. they are not toys...

Our spca even visits apartments where there are complaints about too many pets or overly large pets for the space...

How many square feet are you leasing and how big are the dogs? Mastiffs?

wow. not at all what the OP asked.

furthermore, why should dogs, big or small, need a lot of indoor room? they shouldn't be playing inside anyway: they should understand that inside the home is settle-down time, outside the home is play time.

i too have large dogs (ADT & GSDs) and am trying to find a place to rent in houston due to relocation. you'd be hard pressed to find happier, healthier, better cared for, more loved dogs than mine. i currently own a 1200 sq ft house and the dogs are confined to about 3/4 of that.

they're rarely alone, get an average of one to several hours PER DAY of exercise, be it walks, jogs, hikes, or dog park outings, do fun things like agility & swim, and are fed a better diet than you eat.

btw, 2 are adopted from rescue, in the past couple of months i've spent over $2000 in vet bills from emergencies, and i'm a card-carrying member of pEta. care to criticize my dog loving "credentials" and tell me i shouldn't move to a big city?

jpgiordano · 06-12-2007, 08:46 AM

Thank you for the interesting responses.

My dogs are very pampered pets. They were actually both rescued from the streets of the Bronx after being terribly abused. They are very happy and healthy now and are like my kids. I actually belong to many animal rescue groups in Ny so I am not concerned about mistreating any animals. Instead, I am always looking to help all animals.

Kfbolger-it sounds like you are a great dog parent and I appreciate your comments. I guess some other people don't read the posts clearly.

kfbolger · 06-12-2007, 11:58 AM

jpg...

you're in much better shape than we are, since almost no complexes (be they TH, apts, condos...) in houston rent to anyone with more than two dogs.
i'm having a heck of a time, and it's looking like i'm going to be spending ~1/4 more per month just in rent than i was originally hoping to: the only place we've found so far that will accept us wants almost double our current mortgage for a 1br. boo.
of course with you guys coming from NY, i'm sure these prices will be a relief! (i'm originally from philly, so am able to at least put them in perspective

)

but anyway, i didn't write to whine

, but to give you a few bits of advice that i've been learning in my search.

there are a couple of dogparks in the loop, so you may want to check out those areas. one is called (i think) westpark and it is southwest, down in (around?) w. university. there are another couple out east, but since we never considered anything east of downtown i'm not too sure about them.

there's also the memorial park area you could look into. i'm not sure if there's an actual fenced in run there, but there are jogging trails and whatnot in a big park.

other than that, if you want to shoot me an email i can give you a little more info (about private people/companies and whatnot) if you'd like. the agent i've decided to go with (i've talked to a lot of them!) seems really dog friendly and has potentially been a huge asset for us.

if you want to shoot me a pm:
kfbolger@geology.wisc.edu

kathy

SilverWings · 06-12-2007, 02:07 PM

jpgiordano,

I plan on moving to Houston soon, (from PA) and I also have a "big" dog, in my case a Golden Retriever. My own thought was also to rent for a while to get a feel for the area and take out time looking for a home, but after a short feeling-out trip for my wife I have the feeling we're going to have to change that plan.

From what I could find, anything over 20 pounds is considered a "large" dog by the apartment industry. You will have a hard time finding any selection of places that will allow you to bring them. There are some, yes, but apparently not many. (9900 on Memorial, I think the name was, did allow them but was a pretty old complex, although not terrible - the only one I found) Be careful about what you see in online ads, I visited a couple of places that the online ads on Move.com, apartments.com, rent.com, forrent.com, etc. said took big dogs and they didn't. But if you find a good place, be sure to post what you find!

Quite honestly, I don't get Yetti0's post at all. From what I saw, and granted it was limited, the place was not especially pet friendly. I don't quite get the limitation myself - for aggressive breeds, sure, but what the dog weighs is a pretty stupid way of determining if it's acceptable in an apartment. Big dogs do NOT necissarily need bigger spaces. Great Danes, for example, are great apartment dogs because they arn't very active and pretty much lounge around most of the time. I've also know most small "yap-yap" dogs to generally be far more aggressive than most large dogs, with exceptions of Pits, Rots, and Dobermans of course. For the aparment complex owners to set policies around "mass" of the animal shows no regard to knowing anything about dogs and therefore, I would say -not- pet friendly.

On another note, to the group - do these deed-restricted communities with HOA's have pet rules? I have no idea what these associations control, provide, or otherwise do. (the one in my current development is a non-existant joke)