BiggerPockets

Email exchange today

Prospective tenant:
What all do u need to rent I only make cash I have been in the house I'm at for a year now I'm looking to downsize but need space for my dogs
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Me:
Good landlord reference, evidence of income and ability to pay, and that you will take good care of the home. Outside dogs OK, no "dangerous" breeds.
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Prospective tenant:
Thanks for the reply I have 5 pit bulls and they are inside outside dogs. Thanks anyway and the pits love my newborn baby so ppl make a dog dangerous not it's breed it's as bad as racism thanks anyway
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Me:
I understand. I had a lab/wolf mix for years and 3 Great Pyrenees now. Neighbors, and especially those insurance actuaries don't get it.
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Any good dog stories to share?

Originally posted by Jon Klaus

Any good dog stories to share?

I have one that occurred like a staged Marx Brothers bit. I was on the back porch of one of my vacant rental properties at night while rehabbing it and decided to sit down and open up the laptop and was actually on BP when this happened. It was dark with very little moonlight and I was sitting right at the corner of the house so I couldn't see around the corner. So I'm typing away and suddenly sense something is right there, right around the corner...then I hear leaves crunching. I look around the corner and am face to face, less than a foot away with a huge head that later turned out to be a yellow lab but I swore at the time was the face of a dragon, long nose mountain lion or a demon raccoon. Out of complete surprise, I yell. Out of complete surprise, the dog yelps just as loud. We both do a fast 180, I miss the door and run into the wall; the dog misses the gate and runs right into the fence. We both fall down at the same time, scramble up back to our feet and retreat to where we can both figure out wtf just happened. Never saw the dog again but had a good laugh at how that went down.

If someone had gotten a video of that you could have played Yakety Sax to it.

Tim

By the way, after the pit-bull incident above, I went straight home and added to my written criteria: applicant can be rejected for turning their dog loose without a leash and/or not having their dog under control.

I just had a flea infested property. Going back for second fumigation, new tenant got bites really bad but is being nice about it. Pets can be hassle.

Originally posted by Jon Klaus

Opinions on a single, outside German Shepherd with a "good" disposition?

My favorite breed ever - shepherd mutt actually - devoted and very smart. I just think you have to give them something to do - like a healthy, smart person they'll go loopy if they have nothing to occupy them.

I think dogs are much more nurture vs nature as far as poor behavior goes - most people have no clue about how to train dogs so they're safer with small breeds - a small 'bad' dog isn't gonna do as much damage as a large one :roll:

FYI,
A shepherd will protect the home of it's master and family....and they don't read leases. You are not part of the family. You are an intruder.

You can't think of tenant pets the way you think of your own.

I take pets and I won't rent to anyone who tells me their dog is outdoors only.

They are tenants, so they are probably lying and the dog is an indoor dog, so I reject them for lying on the application.

If the dog really is an outdoor only dog, I don't take pets that aren't considered part of the family. Dogs who are family members are better cared for than dogs that nobody can remember why they wanted in the first place.

Dogs that are keep separate from the family are often barkers. Dogs that don't get any attention can turn nuerotic.

Under no circumstances will I ever accept a dog of any breed that is kept on a chain. You want to teach a dog to bark and bite, there is no better way to do it than to chain the dog in the yard.

I have a duplex that is next door to a house with 3 pit bulls. The dogs spend most of the day outside in their fenced yard (4 foot fence). The dogs are very aggressive and always run to the fence (to bark loudly) when I walk on my narrow sidewalk to get to the back of my property. One day as I was walking along that narrow sidewalk, one of the dogs not only ran to the fence, but it jumped to the top of the fence, reached over, and bit me on the right shoulder. It was winter and I was wearing a heavy winter coat, so the bite didn't break the skin, but just left a big bruise on my shoulder. The dog fell back on its side of the fence, so I didn't shoot it, but had it ended up on my side of the fence, it would have surely eaten a Federal Hydra-Shock (or maybe 2).

Not really a funny story. Many pit bulls ARE dangerous.

A good friend of mine had his little girl severly bitten on the face by a pit bull at the park. Also not a funny story.

Jon Klaus, a livestock guardian, like a service dog, is not a pet.

However, I have only 2 properties where a tenant might have sheep, and I would not permit a livestock guardian in either property because both of those are in neighborhoods with a lot of young children, and you can tell children until you are blue in the face and they still do stupid things.

I've only ever had 1 tenant with sheep and it was bad enough they kept an aggressive pet turkey. I will not take any sort of working guard dog because of iabilty issues.

Mostly, my tenants in those properties have horses. Oregon has a stable law and I keep farm insurance on the properties, and even so, the horses must, just like dogs, pass a temperament interview.

Every livestock guardian I've ever known would stand around at night and bark. Aside from the liability issue, I don't need to deliberately make the neighbors mad at me. Landlording is easier when the neighbors don't hate the landlord's guts.

I'd trust a Great Pyranees long before I'd trust an Anotolian Shepherd, but your dogs are not doing their duty if they will allow a group of children to come in and pet the new lambs.

It's your house, your dogs, and your sheep. It's also your liability, and that's fine. I'll accept liabilty for my own livestock and my own risky behavior. I can't see any good reason to accept it for my tenants.

Sorry for bumping an old thread, but I just saw this and have to comment.

What's disturbing to me about this is not the dog, but the fact that this person decides to contact a person they don't know, whom they're trying to make a good first impression on, using semi-literate, run on sentence "text speak" language.