Quote: melissa thom

Connie, What happens if real estate is destroyed beyond the deposit? What if you can't collect on it? I guess there is the ability to file the insurance claim but how many claims should a landlord put up with before they just say "forget it, either guarantee there won't be X damage type or no dog/cat?"

I guess I don't see how damage from cat claws can't be translated into dollars.

Urine, poop, dogs going through screens .... it's all stuff that only money fixes. How are cat claws different?

In our case we had to spend several thousand uncomfortable dollars to replace scratched drywall corners that were scratched nearly to the studs, and retexture, a railing and railing supports, replace carpeting, and cabinet doors. It's be the equivalent to a dog digging through the drywall, ripping tiles off the bathroom wall, or chewing the cabinets. Sometimes it's just beyond what you plan for when you set the deposit amount. It certainly wasn't what we expected from a person with 3 cats.

You're right, money is all that fixed those things but the time and lost revenue was infuriating for us. So my folks looked at our options and originally decided No cats. Then we had a very nice lady apply for the apartment with a golden retriever and a declawed cat. Seemed reasonable to us since the cat damage wouldn't happen again so we went ahead with it. So we went with declawed cats only after that, I don't think we ever had anyone apply who had to declaw their cat to get into the apartment but we did have several cats after that until we sold that apartment property in 94'.

The worst we (I) have seen to date was from dogs. It was years ago. Now we have the deposit and the CGC thing. I know that a CGC doesn't relate directly to dogs not leaping through screen doors, but it seems to mean that the more responsible owners come a-knocking.

We (I) don't breed-discriminate, which is related to the thread topic, again finding that the CGC has seemed to be a great tool for starting the short list.

Bizarrely even with the biggest and liveliest of dogs and we had many including very rowdy young boxers that were diggers, cats and a leaky 150 gallon aquarium while someone was out of town were the only things that ever caused us trouble to the point of serious repair.

To bring this back around to topic though, I'm not in favor of breed bans because I feel they're not needed and ineffective when compared to ownership education. When people who love these animals don't champion the good parts of their breed and address problem owners and the community at whole we shouldn't be surprised when we're targeted for BSL. It's not fair to those who do it right but owning a dog is a privilege... not a right. Most of the time there is a trigger event to BSL rather than someone just waking up one morning and saying you know what, let's ban dogs who have been used historically for dog fighting.

This is what insurance is for I guess, and calm down about the declawing Ana, I was just asking because I have never owned a cat. All I've ever known is that people just declaw their cats. It's incredibly common place.

I don't believe the OP is actually interested in the original topic, but was trying to drive traffic to her site. foul. AM