Housing can be tough to find in the Roaring Fork Valley, and the list of properties gets shorter when it comes to finding places that accept pets.
Charissa Carvell, a dog trainer at Colorado Animal Rescue in Glenwood Springs, knows this situation all too well. People will come to the rescue to surrender their cats and dogs because they can’t find housing that will take their pets.
“Unfortunately, the pets tend to be bottom rung when it's a house for you and your kids, or your pets,” Carvell said.
She understands the struggle because right after graduating high school, she couldn’t find a place on the Front Range that would take her and her dog Dylon.
“It just never crossed my mind to get rid of him or to not have him,” Carvell said.“We made it work, and we lived together in the car for a long time until I found a house in Fort Collins that I could call home.”
For half a year, Carvell and her 67-pound pitbull-rottweiler mix lived out of her 2006 Nissan Xterra.
“He saved my life,” Carvell said. “I mean, if it wasn't for him, I wouldn't have been a dog trainer. I wouldn't have been the person that I am.”
Things are different now. She has two dogs and a cat and lives in Carbondale. But her situation is far from unique.
Laurie Raymond, who owns High Tails, a doggie daycare and pet store in Glenwood Springs, is trying to change that. Last October, she co-founded a new venture called Pets Are Welcome Here, or PAWH.
Its goal is to work with property owners and residents to make living with pets work for everyone.
“We can just make it easier for people to do the right thing,” Raymond said. “Make it easy and comfortable and friendly to be good tenants and neighbors with their pets.”
Raymond has an answer for just about every pet conflict that comes up. Sometimes, her services can be broad, like sharing information about pet behavior and safety. Other times, she has specific and tangible suggestions like helping design apartment hallways so dogs don’t cross paths with residents who’d rather not encounter pets.
“Barking dogs can tear a neighborhood apart,” Raymond said. “But really they don't have to. That can be solved.”
Raymond’s approach with PAWH also includes mediation between neighbors before frustrations boil over.
“You have an adversarial conflict set up that's really hard to break through,” Raymond said. “But if you approach it with both the complainer and the pet owner in a spirit of trying to solve the problem you can get, sometimes you can get incredible buy-in.”
That buy-in can lead to actual plans to make pets better neighbors – like taking the noisy dog next door out for a walk while the owner is away.
PAWH’s plan also makes sure property owners and managers are part of the equation.
“Having pets, but being able to actually have resources to provide to owners so that it kind of just becomes good for everybody,” said Megan Kapelli, a community association manager with Preferred Property Management. “I think that’s great.”
Kappeli works with property owners who set their own pet policies, including apartments where the HOA allows pets for owners, but not tenants. She encourages clients to be pet-friendly because doing otherwise would narrow their list of potential residents.
“I do think that there is this stigma that they’re going to destroy the property,” Kappeli said. “They’re going to scratch walls. They’re going to scratch doors, floors, all of that stuff. And it really does not happen.”
Her company runs about 350 properties in the area, with a handful in Glenwood Springs. Kappeli said they’ve never had to replace a carpet, and pet damage has been minimal, and covered by the tenant’s security deposit.
As for Raymond, she believes pet-friendly policies are a win-win.
“Allowing pets allows landlords to be more successful and they can charge enough money easily to offset the minimal risks,” Raymond said.
With that mentality driving PAWH’s mission, it could make a difference for people like Carvell.
“It would have been pretty life changing to be able to say, ‘Well, I can move anywhere that I want.’” Carvell, said. “To find a place to live and still have my pet and be supported in that.”
