Lethal Weapon in Our Rental Home
It’s that time of year again when the leases are due for renewal so we are anticipating a few vacancies throughout the summer.
Of course this prompts a barrage of phone calls with a common question relating to pets.
This afternoon a lady called and her second question was, “do you accept pets”, so I had to reply with, “it depends, what do you have” (why can’t they ever just be specific with this question?).
Her reply was to start telling me all about her “wonderful” dog, carefully avoiding telling me what kind of dog that it is. After hearing this introduction a couple million times, I already knew what kind of dog she had, so I cut her off and said, “so do you have a pit-bull or a Rottweiler?”
“Neither one, it’s a mix”, my reply, “a mix of what”. Conveniently she claimed to not know at first, and then a few questions later she admitted that she thought it could be a lab boxer mix.
I have heard that one before and know this to be one of the many terms that others have used to let a pit-bull pass by an unsuspecting landlord. A few that we have heard lately include Terriers, Staffies, American Staffordshire Terrier, molosser, Lab, american stafford and I am sure there are many more out there.
I even have had a tenant a few years ago who claimed to have a purebred lab, yet the first time I sent my plumber over there he could not get in because of the vicious pit-bull threatening to chew his leg off at the door. (This same dog when locked in the bathroom a few weeks later actually ate a 1 foot diameter hole through the bathroom door, yet they still claimed it was a gentle lab).
I know that every time you mention Pit-bull or Rottweiler, you will get a million people protesting, telling how gentle their little dog “Diablo” is, and I know that many of them are gentle, especially to their owner.
And these people are always so surprised and quick to blame the victim when “Diablo chews the neighbor girls face off, or eats the neighbor’s dog, or kills the owners child after years of cohabitation.
It does make we wonder though, if these dogs are so damn gentle, why is it that every gangster wannabe goes out and gets a pit-bull or a Rottweiler, or one of the similar breeds of dogs.
So next time you want to get a dog like this into a home, first consider getting rid of the dog, but if you insist on keeping “diablo”, then plan to pay a little extra, plan to get liability insurance on the pet, and plan to pay extra for the inconvenience to your landlord, his real estate agent, and all the contractors who maintain your home.
And plan to have a lot of landlords turn you down for having a vicious dog, and/or for lying about it by telling them you have lab or one of the other bullsh*t names that dishonest tenants come up with to sneak one of these fellows into a home with.
Maybe it would be better to just skip getting Diablo until you can afford to buy your own home, then you will just have to argue with your insurance agent and your mortgage company over how gentle Diablo is.
In looking for a video to go with this article, the first one that I found was this one, and after watching this series of unprovoked attacks, I may start carrying a weapon while walking my dog.
Rest assured the second one that I found will not be shown here, far too bloody.
picture credits
- http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Zora_bitten_by_Pit_bull_dog.jpg
- http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Catch_Dogs_%28boar_hunting%29.jpg
- http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:M_%282%29.JPG
- http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PITBULL_TOBY.JPG
- http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:USMC-090727-M-4150N-214.jpg
- http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Police_dog_attack.JPG
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