# Restricted breeds lists and the problems they cause..



## SophieGSD

Anyone ever had problems finding somewhere to live because of a "restricted breeds list"? We were having a LOT of trouble trying to find a house to rent in Pensacola, FL because peoples' "insurances said German Shepherds are a dangerous risk to neighbors, their children, and their pets."

We were VERY lucky to find a house for rent that was owned by a military couple that don't care what we have.

But APPARENTLY.. If you have a dog that has at some point been thought of as an aggressive breed, it's put on a black list that makes it nearly impossible to find somewhere to live. Oh yeah, and did I mention these policies are usually state-wide? Yeah. And did you know that, even though they says "Dogs okay, on case-by-case basis", that they really mean "Dogs okay as long as it's under 20lbs and you can pick it up if it's being mean"? Yeah.

Apparently this is actually a nation-wide thing that you just have to get really lucky with, and hope you find that one private renter that doesn't require you to insure the place you're renting.


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## Wolfgeist

I have yet to encounter such a disgraceful list, and when I do the highest people in the company are going to receive extremely... informative letters.


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## mycobraracr

I am/was having the same problem. So stupid! My dog would only be dangerous if her tongue was a knife.


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## AbbyK9

> hope you find that one private renter that doesn't require you to insure the place you're renting.


For what it is worth, I have found that it's much easier to rent with large ("aggressive" breed) dogs if you can show potential landlords that you do carry renter's insurance and that your policy specifically covers your dogs under the liability clause.

Our renter's insurance is through USAA and the liability clause that covers our dogs is a "shadow" policy, meaning it's good anywhere we and our dog are. So if my dog injures someone at a local dog event, that would be covered. Not only if she is on the property we are renting.

It also helps immensely if you can show a potential landlord that your dog is well-trained and well-behaved. You can show stuff like your CGC certificate or other obedience titles, or offer to give the potential landlord references such as your current landlord, your veterinarian, your dog trainer, etc.

We made our last move within about two weeks as our landlord sold the property where we were living and needed us to move out, and didn't have any trouble finding a place that would let us have our animals.


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## KZoppa

Basically what Abby said. I completely understand your frustration though! We had so many problems and occassionally still do. We choose base housing right now because they accept GSDs and we couldnt afford to buy a house out in town to not have to deal with the hassel of fighting to get my dogs in and keeping them in. 

We had trouble with one landlord "losing" our pet deposit and tried to make us pay another one. When we moved, we had to pay pet rent (which is ridiculous BTW!) and then our dogs had to be grandfathered in when new management showed up and changed everything and that required all kinds of testing that we had to pay for. 

I honestly think restricted lists are stupid but alot of times, its really the insurance company thats to blame. I wish you luck. The search can really bite the big one!


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## MustLoveGSDs

Yep, but these "dangerous"(loving, affectionate, loyal, and intelligent) breeds are more than worth the hassle, at least in my opinion.


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## Tiffseagles

I do landlord checks for potential adopters all the time. These lists are extremely common. And you would not believe how many people do not check with their landlord regarding restrictions before they start looking for an animal!


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## shepherdmom

Wild Wolf said:


> I have yet to encounter such a disgraceful list, and when I do the highest people in the company are going to receive extremely... informative letters.


It is because of insurance companies. I own my house but it is very common in Northern Nevada.


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## kennajo

I know I will have a move in the future and I worry about this! I will look into the renter's insurance idea.


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## martemchik

I didn't have any issues. We had more than 5 choices to rent from large apartment complexes just in the southern Milwaukee suburbs. If we would've broadened our search we would've easily had more. That being said, most lists include any dog that looks like a Pit, Rotts, Akitas, and Dobermans (including our current apartment complex). It's not hard to convince a private owner to allow a dog, especially if you have your own insurance, but the larger complexes have no choice. They have insurance policies against it and no amount of informative letter will change it. There's no use getting angry at the manager/complex owner, they aren't the ones making these rules. Older complexes are more likely to have "grandfathered" in dog policies, as its pretty difficult to stop allowing something if some residents already have it.


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## crackem

When we were renting, we lived in about 3-4 different places over the years and yes, we ran into problems. 

We were never left homeless for sure, or ever had to take up temporary stuff till we found a place, it was always a smooth transition when moving to a new city or within. BUT most places dont' allow pets at all and I'd estimate 70% or so that did would not accept a GSD. 

I heard the, "no we have children in the neighborhood" line over and over again, but what do you do? They were never going to accept that these dogs have bomb proof temperaments and are probably the safest dogs they'd ever have the priviledge to live next to. They didn't even want to meet the dogs, just flat out no. Some did want to meet the dogs, until they found out the breed.

But we always found nice places that didn't have a problem with our pets and our pets never caused a problem


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## robk

I ran into this problem years ago when I was a renter. I could not rent from any rental management companies in our town because they had all black listed German Shepherds. I eventually found a house for rent by a private individual through the newspaper classified ads. He never had a problem with the dogs, he even was very complementary about them.


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## Kesser

I work in the insurance industry and even before I got Vegas I would get so mad about GSD's being on the 'agressive breed list'. 
The first company I worked for was really strict on the breed list - they did eventually drop GSD's from the list but if you had a Rotti, Doberman, Pit Bull etc we would not give you home or tenants insurance. The company I work for now doesn't seem to really care. We ask about dogs but we never get into probing questions like we had to at the last company. 
All in all I'm a firm believer that the owner plays a big part on the dogs temperment - its not always just the dog breed. All the pit bulls, dobermans and rotti's I've met have been very well tempered. It's such a shame that media can throw these beuatiful dogs under the bus sort to speak and give them such a bad name.


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## bellamia

oh absolutely!. we had this issue last year when we wanted to live in a(had to) live in a rented apprtmnt., cause our new house was still being built. EVERYWHERE i called i was shown the door cuse i have an 'agressive' breed. I was so fed up, i almost said no to our prospective buyer!in this market, only for 1 month! anyway someone here suggested we shud ask to lease bck our sold home for that month and see if that works. Thank God it did, and we painlessly but spending and arm and a leg stayed on for tht month , then moved. So i feel your pain!!!!!

why do u have agressive breeds in the first place?! for that matter all of us, we r better off having a snake! we live in texas btw. gud luck


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## martemchik

The issue here is all the other owners. Its easier to say no to everyone then to allow one person that says they are awesome and then have their dog bite someone or become a nuisance. It's not worth the insruance company's time or risk to allow these dogs in. As much as you want to say that many of them are great animals, there are plenty that aren't. I've met my share of GSDs that I wouldn't trust whether it be due to genetics or the owner/handler, so I understand why the breed is on the list. It takes one bad dog out of thousands to ruin a reputation, and its just not worth the risk. Sadly no amount of CGCs and titles will convince an insurance company otherwise.

As I've read on this forum, there are CGC evaluators that will not pet a dog on the top of the head but instead go for the chin because a pet on the head can be a sign of aggression and cause a dog to react. So dogs pass the CGC and are still not bulletproof. What does that say to the insurance company?


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## bsesender

Kesser said:


> I work in the insurance industry and even before I got Vegas I would get so mad about GSD's being on the 'agressive breed list'.
> The first company I worked for was really strict on the breed list - they did eventually drop GSD's from the list but if you had a Rotti, Doberman, Pit Bull etc we would not give you home or tenants insurance. The company I work for now doesn't seem to really care. We ask about dogs but we never get into probing questions like we had to at the last company.
> All in all I'm a firm believer that the owner plays a big part on the dogs temperment - its not always just the dog breed. All the pit bulls, dobermans and rotti's I've met have been very well tempered. It's such a shame that media can throw these beuatiful dogs under the bus sort to speak and give them such a bad name.


can you divulge which company dropped the gsd from their list and which companies insures gsd for bites and/or property damage when renting in florida


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## Neko

Sigh, huge problem in Florida =/


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## EyeLoveGSDs

Hi All - I am so incredibly frustrated at the moment. I currently live in NYC in a doorman building and was looking to adopt an EPI German Shepherd from the local ASPCA. Much to my dismay, my building restricts having GSDs due to insurance reasons. I even called another building to inquire and they also quickly said "no no" to GSDs. I know i've seen plenty of them in NYC. Does anyone know how they can get around this? I really wanted to adopt this dog and now I'm so upset because my building is giving me a hard time. Even for the future, I am interested in finding a place to live where there is absolutely no restriction!


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## selzer

And this is why, when I see a thread, where someone is letting their dog bite people, run loose, get loose, knock down someone, and the list goes on, I am usually not all flowery with my responses. 

We cannot afford to let our dogs run amok. We cannot afford to say "accidents happen." We own a large breed that is a little more likely to bite than a bird dog or a lot of other dogs. And when they do bite, they do more damage because they are larger and stronger than a lot of other breeds. 

It is not the fault of the insurance companies. It is the fault of irresponsible dog owners and incredibly high punitive damages that people get from having any type of injury concerning dogs. Home-owner's insurance takes a hit, and then when they run some reports, they look at the risk factors that contribute to large payouts, and dogs are on the list. Then what dogs? 

We can hate insurance companies, but the fact is, it comes back to irresponsible dog owners. We need to pound on people who just leaves there dogs out in the yard, people who let their dogs rush through the door and knock people down, bite a kid, bite another dog. 

Will it make a difference? I don't know. But grousing about insurance companies will not make a difference either.


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## Bridget

The insurance companies want to charge people an arm and a leg, but they don't want to pay out EVER. However... they have these restrictions because we live in such a sue-happy society.


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## TrickyShepherd

I haven't had an issue yet with mine, but know many who have. We own our home and although we have 2 HOA's to deal with, both do not have any restrictions on breeds.... they just want the dog well behaved and not a nuisance to the community (barking 24/7, biting, running free, etc.). We have all different breeds around here. Our insurance company also doesn't have any limitation on GSDs.... some other breeds yes, but GSDs are not on their list. So we're in the clear, and we keep very low key around here and remain extremely respectful to neighbors and the general public.... never had any serious problems. Hopefully it stays that way.

I have had friends though, that did have to do a lot of research on which insurance company to go with, and when owning in HOA areas... lots of issues with that, with renting.... I've heard of a LOT of bad situations. People making up stuff to get rid of the GSD, since the 'banned list' didn't include them... they just did other things that were included. Anyway, so it's not unheard of. But we are extremely lucky to not have any issues.

Good luck with everything.


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## Bridget

A few years ago, an insurance adjuster came to our house to look at damage we had to our roof. They had never asked if we had a GSD, so I never brought it up and everyone was happy. I put Heidi in the bedroom so he wouldn't see her. She barked. The adjuster cocks his head and says "Is that a German shepherd I hear?" I reluctantly admitted that it was. He said "I thought so...I have two at home."


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