In Defense of Dogs

Since we owned our first home in Michigan, many of you know it came as a shock to us when we sold our home and discovered that it is extremely difficult to rent a home if you have a dog with any of mix of an "aggressive breed" in her.  Since Padme is a Boxer/Pit Bull mix, people hear the words "pit bull" and give us an automatic no. I can understand that, given the bad press and truly bad dogs (and owners) that are out there and the damage that those dogs can do.

Due to the way this constrains our house-hunting options, every time we move we reconsider sending Padme to one of our parents "for a year or so," but we always come back to the decision that she is part of our family, our responsibility, and if we can find a place where we can keep her, we will.

We pretty much always end up describing her to prospective landlords, and this time we even included a detailed description of her personality and history with our lease application. I won't include that here, but I will include the collage of pictures we came up with that we feel expresses the kind of dog she is, and why we feel she is worth all the trouble and even essay-writing in her defense.