Pets at Vet School

For those in vet school still lurking around here, did you have trouble finding housing for you and your multiple pets upon admission? Back story is that I have two cats, but the one is a pretty scaredy cat that landlords never even know I have, so whenever I move I just tell them I only have one cat.

I have the opportunity to take another cat (I mean look at this cat she's so friggin cute)in that I originally caught out from the 100 acres horse farm I work that someone dumped. I tried to be responsible and not a crazy cat lady and took her to a rescue through some of my vet contacts. She still hasn't been adopted and I want to bring her home. The reason I hadn't taken her originally and why I'm still hesitating is that I'm scared though that it will be a bitch and a half to find housing once I'm (hopefully) accepted to vet school for next fall. I'm currently in a high rent urban area, so it is understandably more difficult to find a place that will take 2+ kitties. As most vet schools tend to be in less populated areas and lower rent, have any of you had trouble finding places to live with your multiple animals?

Yes and no. Initially when we were looking at apartments it looked nearly impossible because understandably most landlords were horrified when we said we had 4 cats and a dog. Especially since we really have 6 cats, a dog and a reptile and fibbing about the cats was my husbands idea (he's in denial about the last 2). The pet deposits were pretty big and a lot of places charged pet rent, per pet, per month which really adds up. We got much luckier when we looked at houses to rent and really, really lucked out because we rented from a vet who is ok with the real number of pets. You can look for housing through most vet school's websites, they usually give you a list of pet friendly places and students/former students will often advertise their homes that they're trying to rent out. So after being long winded: yes it will be a little more difficult but no I don't think it's impossible. If my menagerie and I can find a place I think most people can.

It probably depends on where you'll be, but personally I found it hard to find pet-friendly places.

Most pet-friendly places were more expensive (renting out of a condo, renting part of a house, etc.). Other places that were pet-friendly were smaller, and I don't think my pets would have been happy. There are also different bylaws for animals in the city I moved to that would have been more restrictive for my pets.

In the end, I opted to leave my pets at my parent's home where they will have free space and hopefully more attention. I know quite a few other people in my class opted for the same situation.

Hopefully the city you end up moving to will be more conducive to keeping pets because it does suck leaving them!

I did have a bit of trouble with it, but not as much trouble as some. I have a kitten right now, but was originally going to bring one of my cats from home (and decided against it not for ease of finding a place to live, but because he is terrified of traveling and it felt unfair of me to put him through either an 18+ hour drive or a $400 flight without a passenger when he is perfectly happy with my parents) and also wanted room enough to have some dogs in the future. That wasn't a necessity, but I began searching with that criteria as a preference and I found a lot of nice places that would accept multiple cats, but no dogs over 25 pounds, period. I had to search long and hard to find a place with no restrictions on pets outside of the city laws, as did many of my classmates who moved with their dogs from home, most of which are large breed.

Words of caution: Some of the places I looked at that said they accepted multiple cats also had a hidden statement somewhere saying that the cats had to be declawed. It made me sick to see it. Make sure you ask about policies on that if your cats aren't declawed.

When you start looking for places to live, I would also start looking at places further from the university than the undergraduates live. Landlords in general don't seem to trust that population with their property (and this is also where I found every demand for declawed cats only, but that's just in this area), so, if you look away from that, you might have more luck with getting a pet friendly place. I live out on the WAY west end of the city here, so close to the city limits that the city won't pick up my trash lol, but it's worth it to have this freedom.

Also, some landlords who have policies against pet ownership will bend the rules for vet students, so be sure to let everyone know you're a vet student before you mention having multiple cats. This goes all the way from letting you have pets when other people can't to waiving all or a portion of the pet deposit they require tenants to pay. If the school of your interest has a big sib/little sib program, you can also try to get an inside scoop on which places in the area are pet friendly without having to start from scratch, and, of course, there's always this place lol.

I didn't have a problem finding pet friendly housing in Philadelphia. Everyone I know who lives near me has pets as well.

That said here are my suggestions:
-search only for pet friendly housing; you can do this on craigslist or pretty much any other apartment site. The school you're going to should have a housing page with a search function of listings too.
-don't lie to your landlord, it doesn't end well. I'm not going to tell the story.
-once you come to an agreement, get it written into the lease. This brings up another story I'm not going to tell (sorry I'm tired). I currently have a clause in my lease stating "landlord permits tenant to keep a rabbit." Verbal agreements do not cut it.
-start looking early, like at least 6 months before you want to move in. You don't want to be stuck between a place to live and your animals.

bunnity said:

I didn't have a problem finding pet friendly housing in Philadelphia. Everyone I know who lives near me has pets as well.

That said here are my suggestions:
-search only for pet friendly housing; you can do this on craigslist or pretty much any other apartment site. The school you're going to should have a housing page with a search function of listings too.
-don't lie to your landlord, it doesn't end well. I'm not going to tell the story.
-once you come to an agreement, get it written into the lease. This brings up another story I'm not going to tell (sorry I'm tired). I currently have a clause in my lease stating "landlord permits tenant to keep a rabbit." Verbal agreements do not cut it.
-start looking early, like at least 6 months before you want to move in. You don't want to be stuck between a place to live and your animals.

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I'm also in Philly, and agree with this. I had 2 small dogs (5.5lb and 6.5lb respectively) but was planning on buying a house instead of renting, so decided to adopt a large dog (ended up with an AWESOME rottie mix 🙂_) back in May... then in July we decided that renting close to school would be the less stressful option, and had to scramble for a place with the 3 dogs... long story short it took me one week to fill an entire day with apartments to see, and I was truthful with all of them about the dogs. Not a single place that I called told me that 3 was too many or that there were any breed/size restrictions. I did a lot of research before calling and only contacted pet-friendly places... but I ended up with a long list and got to choose an apartment that we love.

At our last place there were no pet restrictions but we still felt compelled to "fib" when we got the big dog and told them we were watching it for someone semi-long term. It was stressful lying, so we decided that we would be completely forthright with the new landlord and it's been a huge stress relief. Also, when we went to sign the lease I realized it said "2 pet maximum" even though they were aware that we had 3. We made them change it to no maximum before signing, and I'm glad we did because it's one less thing to worry about. I think you'll probably be fine wherever you go, although I'm curious to know what city the poster above (thnythe) is in... not that the large dog restrictions really hurt your situation...

I've always been one to recommend avoiding the accumulation of pets at the undergrad/vet school level. I'm not advocating not having any pet, just stop at one or two! Especially if you are on a 'student budget' there is no reason to keep acquiring animals. Sure, foster and adopt out yourself maybe, but make sure you can part with an animal before fostering.

You just don't know really what your future circumstances will bring. Hell, I ended up on the other side of the world and I don't know what I would have done if I had 2, 3, 4+ animals -- probably not living over here at the moment. It ended up costing my roommate (or her parents rather) an extra $12000 to get her three dogs over here. I know I wouldn't have had that cash sitting around. Heck, I didn't have enough to bring my one cat over here ($3500) but he's living happily with my parents with their cat and their much larger house. Hopefully I'll get him back when I'm done here 😛

I guess my thought is that when you are a vet you can afford to take in as many pets as you want, or to at least take them in, fix them, then adopt them out in your own time--as students we don't really need to be saving the world one pet at a time at the expense of ourselves, our education, and opportunity.

As a side note it took us about 3 months and a bit of luck to find a house that would let us rent with 3 dogs over here. It seems near impossible to find 'pet friendly' landlords in Western Australia, especially with a lot of large animals 🙂

I won't dare to step on toes with my thoughts about horse ownership while in school, but the words 'excessive money pit' come to mind.

Ok she's now in my bathroom being insufferably cute. I'll cross the housing bridge when I get to it, and I'll just plan really far in advance. I'm neurotic about keeping the house clean and I have roommates and landlord who will attest to this, so I should be able to find something.

I definitely wouldn't have taken her if I had applied out of country, but I didn't apply out of country in the first place because of the cats I already had.

Thanks for the thoughts!

I had problems and ended up buying a house, but mine was due to breed bans by landlords. I have a GSD.

I would NEVER lie about how many animals you have. If you are caught, in many places, you could be legally thrown out immediatly without any return of your deposit. You could also owe 'damages' beyond the deposit. Telling a judge 'it is a cat that stays hidden so it doesn't really count as a cat' isn't going to fly.

Also, if there is ever an emergency, and your landlord/manager is a responsible soul, they may rescue one pet but not the other because they don't know about it. We had a truck full of toxic chemicals spill on a highway near an apartment I lived at. The apartment had to be evacuated, but I was at work. My landlord rescued my cat (on the lease with the pet deposit.) The 'hidden' cat downstairs escaped when the firefighters went through the buliding checking toxicity levels and was found HBC later that day. if our landlord had known, he would have taken their cat out as well.

I have one of my dogs with me, but I left the other 4 dogs, cats, horses, cows...ETC.!! I am renting a place in between Auburn and Tuskegee; I live in a trailer in the middle of a mans farm. He did not care if I brought my horse, but he was really weird about me bringing my 13 yo dog. (I think he has had bad experiences with other renters) I talked him into letting me bring my dog. I have friends that live in Auburn and they live in apts. One of my friends has several cats and a dog. Sooo I think you just need to wait until you find out where you are going and once you get in, go there are talk to either apt. people or go to some real estate offices and find a house to rent that allows pets.