16/04/2010 Tenants to be given clearer guidelines

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New guidelines have been produced to encourage housing professionals to allow pets in to social housing. The guide will offer important points to consider when implementing a pet friendly policy which include areas on “status dogs” and how to deal with noise, damage, fouling and tenants who ignore pet policy rules.

The guide follows research that concluded that many housing providers did not have a clear policy to follow and many housing associations did not have a clear cut policy to offer its tenants at all. The guide was initially launched in 2007 but was found by the agencies involved to be unclear and of no use to many residents and housing staff and caused problems due to its unstructured approach.

The RSPCA, Dogs Trust, PDSA and other organisations associated with pets and their welfare were involved in the agreement. Many housing agencies have previously felt the best policy was to have a blanket ban on keeping pets at all with emphasis on not allowing dogs or cats. However, it was found that many tenants kept pets anyway and were therefore breaking the rules. It was pointed out that the responsible pet owner’s lives are often greatly enhanced by the experience of owning a pet as the pet can encourage tenants to interact with others, take more exercise and in the case of lone tenants, improve their mental wellbeing.

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