How to Choose a Pet for Your Apartment

The Best Pets for an Apartment

Where to find pet friendly apartment rentals? So you’re thinking about getting a pet for your apartment. The first step is the simplest, although its results can be disappointing: check with your landlord or front office clerk about what pets are allowed. (This is often included in your contract, but it’s still good to verify that nothing has changed since the signing of that initial contract.)

How Much Space & Time Do You Have for a Pet?

Your next step is to think about what you want from your pet and what you’re capable of doing for it in terms of time and space. Be honest with yourself; it’s not fair to make an innocent animal suffer for your errors in judgment.

While sometimes giving up a pet can be best for everyone, if it’s a probability that’s easy to foresee —for example, you got a dog, but are rarely home and often don’t have much energy for playing— it would be better to admit that up front, and not put the animal through a traumatic change of ownership after being stuck alone in a tiny apartment for months.

So really think about what your capabilities are now, rather than what you’d like for them to be, in order to be fair to the animal. As far as what you want from the pet, an informed decision is useful here as well. If you’re adverse to smelly hamster cages, they may not be the best choice. If you crave physical contact with your pet, fish won’t do much for you. For a pet that will ornament your living space rather than leave hair all over it, and urine, an aquarium or terrarium may be the answer.

Try Being a "Foster" Pet Parent

Working as a “foster” pet owner for the humane society can be a helpful tool for examining what it’s like caring for a specific kind of pet, although often fostering is limited to pets with special needs, it still can give you an idea.

3 Things to Consider Before you Commit

The big concerns people run into with pets in an apartment are: damage to the apartment, enough space for the pet, and noise from the pet disturbing the neighbors.

What Kind of Dog Could Stay in an Apartment

In general, dogs may not be the best apartment pet. Whether large or small, they do tend to be noisy, and if they’re difficult enough to train or you run late, you may discover just how difficult it can be to get the urine scent out of the carpet. Perhaps most important though, they tend to need more space than an apartment can give, also they do need a lot of attention.

Do Cats Make Good Indoor Pets?

Cats don’t need the same amount of space that dogs do, and seem content indoors, as long as they get plenty of attention… when they want it, that is. But they are prone to some of the same apartment damage problems that dogs are, albeit, normally to a lesser degree.

Alternative Pet Options for an Apartments

Fish and terrarium animals tend to be quiet and produce little odor. Birds can get quite noisy, so that’s something to be aware of. A hamster or a gerbil can be an excellent pet for snuggling and then returning to its cage, where it can do no damage.

For more articles on pets and other home related items please visit our Home and Garden section on GKLife.