Recently I was faced with the enormous task of moving to another state and house shopping with my boyfriend, two cats, and very big young Husky dog. We had our challenges on many issues to compromise between the five of us, so I'm going to tell about how we arrived at our dream house, which has worked out well and I'm very pleased with it. As guys and gals will, we differed on topics on everything from hardwood floors vs carpets, to the amount of yard to mow and how much space the dog should have to be exercised inside a fence vs someone having to walk her at the crack of dawn and last thing at night before bed. These are things to really think about, since a lot of time can be taken up mowing grass, vacuuming, and shampooing carpets or for heaven's sake, if you are renting: if the carpets and flooring might suffer from pet damage,: you could be looking at thousands and even court fees if this happens. So what to do? Here's how we did it. We did sit down and make a list of the things that we thought we could not do without, yet then we came up with some options if we had to compromise; for example, the fenced in yard. The yard having to be a big point can add a lot of cost and maintenance to The House, restricting the options if you are needing to be in a certain area for work commute, schools, nature, etc.. I would have preferred a condo we saw. The grounds were kept up by the HOA fees, but they were rather pricey. The upstairs ONLY was carpeted, and we noted that a pet gate could prevent access to any of the carpet by the HUSKY dog. We looked at another condo, and it did not have a fenced in yard, but I loved it because it had four balconies for suntanning and retreat areas. One could be a screened in "catio" for my twin Siamese. When my cats used to not have any outdoor access and climbing facility, I found that putting an outdoor area where they have cat jungle gyms ended the pricey problem of them tearing up the carpet on stairs in another apartment, which was delightfully fun for them, but caused a big headache for us with my landlord when I moved out. This condo did not appeal to my BF however, the dog owner in the family, who was dead set on a big yard. I did not have faith in his commitment to consistently mow a large yard and pick up poop. So I did my research and found a great solution which totally opened up our options (and therefore saving our pocketbook) on the choices we could make on houses with a large dog. It's a porta-doggy porch potty!! It's worked out great, you can find many various brands and styles and sizes to fit your needs, between 99 and 239 dollars. (vs, deciding between houses that fluctuated by 5 to 25 thousand dollars depending on the lot size? This was a a very economical alternative.) They have them online and at the major home and garden stores, or, you could even build one. The final house we chose? I absolutely loved it for the neighborhood, and neither one of us were going to budge on the it, though it did not have a fenced in yard for our big pooch! Like in so many house searches, we found a location and a deal that was unbeatable. That fact of the view, and the amenities, and the very low HOA fees for using the pool and sports area, was something I could not pass up just so our doggy could do her business in a huge yard. Also you know who, was going to be the one patrolling it to clean up the results. What this house had was a back porch, and so the porch potty works on it, and would have worked out for a pet in an apartment or condo as well that did not have a yard! It is a medium sized box that came complete with choice of real or fake grass, and it even has a built in watering system, that hooks up to a hose and a Handy drainage feature to keep it clean. Our husky uses it without fail, and here's the thing about some dogs: our dog does not do her business quickly on a leash, it takes almost an hour for her if you stand there watching. With this, she can zip out there, have her privacy, and it made the home search process be equally about the people, as well as about our doggy. I was glad to not have to pay higher HOA fees for lawn maintenance of a much larger yard. She is happy and I got the house I wanted at a better price.
