(or, THE PLIGHT OF THE GERMAN SHEPHERD)

Never knew finding a place would be so difficult.

I knew Asheville was a desirable destination. I’d heard real estate prices had gone up in recent years because there were so many people wanting to move in but literally not enough housing. (The vacancy rate is next to nil–less than 1%!)

But what I didn’t know was that the town’s dog-friendly mantra was perhaps just the veneer covering a dirty little reality underneath.

Nearly every ad I came across stated something anti-doggie.

It was either no pets, small dogs only or with a weight limit, no dogs that bark, less active dogs only, or carried some exorbitant non-refundable fee (like $400+).

Now I’m happy to pay a deposit for my animal, but non-refundable? No bene. I have the utmost confidence that my dog wouldn’t do the least bit of damage—she barely chewed up anything as a puppy and as an adult she doesn’t even dig in the yard! So unless they count me having to vacuum up fur balls year-round as some sort of irreversible damage, why in the world would I throw my money away like that? (It’s the principle, people!)

The few that allowed them and didn’t state a weight limit, (and that weren’t expecting some crazy non-refundable deposit), I called immediately.

And I quickly became aware that beyond the anti-doggie came the anti-breed.

“Oh yes, we allow dogs,” they’d say. “What kind do you have?”

“A German Shepherd,” I’d reply.

“Oh. We don’t allow German Shepherds. They’re considered an aggressive breed.”

Call after call and it was the same.

“A German Shepherd? No, I’m sorry our insurance won’t allow them. They’re considered aggressive.”

I was dumbfounded. I had never imagined that the fact that I owned a certain dog breed would nearly put me on the street.

But I kept on. And it wasn’t long before I came to dread the loaded question. The breed. The breed.

Then one day I had an epiphany. Greta was no longer a German Shepherd. She was an Alsatian Malinois!

Genius! I thought. She was lighter colored like one, and sometimes on the street people even stopped to ask me if that’s what she was.

Or maybe she was a mutt! Hmm yeah, I wasn’t really sure what she was… she was just a mutt. I mean, lots of people have mutts, so why couldn’t I?

I held my breath and made another phone call. But when they question came I just couldn’t lie.

“What kind of dog?”

“A German Shepherd,” I could only reply.

“Sorry, no German Shepherds.”

“But she’s a good girl!” I wanted to yell. “There are no bad breeds, only bad owners!”

But there it was, another rental opportunity gone.

My friends kept asking me: “any luck?”

And I always had to reply with a sigh and a “no.”

I felt like people thought I was just being dramatic, making it up. But I wasn’t. It was coming down to the wire and I still had no idea where I could go. It was becoming increasingly nerve-wracking. If worst came to worst, I planned on storing my things somewhere and popping a tent in the forest.

One day during the midst of my house hunting I was driving downtown and saw a couple on the sidewalk walking a German Shepherd. I wanted to call out to them, “where do you live!?” Not because I wanted to room with them- but because perhaps it would give me insight into where the possibilities were for renting.

Though I’d started to believe that unless you knew someone personally you could rent from or owned your own home, living within the city limits of Asheville, North Carolina, USA, with a German Shepherd was simply considered taboo.

Then, finally, just days before I had to get out of my place and still with nowhere to go, I made yet another phone call. The house had just been posted online and I had to jump on it.

When the dreaded question came I just answered honestly.

“I have a German Shepherd. And I’ve had so much trouble finding a place because of that. I can assure you she’s a very well-behaved dog.”

“A Shepherd? Hm. Well we’ll have to ask the owner. Is she trained?”

“Totally trained.”

“OK, we’ll get back to you tomorrow.”

I waited anxiously.

When I didn’t hear anything by midday I texted the agent.

“Let’s go ahead of show you the house,” she replied.

I took it that in that case, the owner must have OK’ed my pup. Yes!

At the showing there were four other people besides me, more arriving as I left.

“Oh dear,” I thought. “How do I stand out? How do I make sure I get this place and not any of these other people?”

I had quickly realized that getting a house in Asheville was something like a competition and I had made up my mind—this one I was determined to win.

I wanted to jump up and down and yell, “PICK ME PICK ME!!”

As soon as I left the showing I filled out the online application and texted the real estate agent.

“I REALLY want this house.” I wrote her. “I already applied, and my roommates will be this evening as soon as they’re off work.”

I hounded them. Phone calls, texts, and emails–I couldn’t help but think they were annoyed. But I wanted them to know I was serious, that I was eager, not willing to let it slip away.

 

It was a few days before my roommates and I had to get all our stuff out and it was back and forth to the car I went, carrying out miscellaneous belongings, packing my car full, though still with no known destination.

I was getting antsy. Increasingly stressed. My BFF and I planned on getting a beer in town, try for a moment to maybe forget our worry, throw around crazy ideas about our great Asheville escape (should we move to Arizona? Catch a plane to Thailand? Timbuktu?!) if it really wasn’t in the cards for us to stay in town any longer.

I was standing by the side of the road next to my car just taking in some fresh air when a car pulled up slow beside me.

“Just wanted to let you know there’re three bears up there,” the driver said, a middle-aged man who leaned over what I assumed was his son, a teenager, in the passenger’s seat.

“Huh??” I replied, rudely.

I had heard exactly what he had said and didn’t mean such a caveman-like reply, but it was just my initial natural reaction because I was so surprised.

“There are some bears up right up there,” he said again. “Just behind that metal thing. You see that big silver metal storage building? They’re right behind that.”

“Oh wow!” I replied. “I can’t believe that. Thanks so much for telling me.”

And he drove off.

Now I wanted to see the bears! I couldn’t believe they were just a few strides away. Suddenly I was no longer safe packing up my car in the middle of the day by the side of the road, even though I was nearly in downtown Asheville, right off a very busy four lane main road.

So I ran inside and grabbed J.

“J! J! There’re bears out there!” I yelled. “Hurry let’s go see them!”

“Huh?!”

He was as shocked as I was.

We got in the car and pulled literally maybe 15 feet up the road and there they were.

Two little cubs, munching away at something on the ground. They were so cute!

I was kicking myself that in the midst of the mess and boxes that I didn’t have my camera on me.

Then from behind some bushes there she was—the big protective mommy bear loomed into view. She had a big collar around her neck. It made me feel sorry for her. I was sad too that they were so close to the busy city streets.

Where had they come from? I speculated that like the big deer we had seen at the side of the road in the night a month or so previous that they had wandered from the acreage of the Biltmore Estate that was right down the street.

“Ok, I’m good, we saw them, let’s back up now,” J said from the back seat. (He couldn’t sit up front because my big lucky bamboo plant occupied the space).

“J, no I want to watch them!” I replied.

“I don’t want to disturb them!” he insisted. “It’s scary, I don’t want her to come get us.”

“She can’t get us, we’re in the car!”

But he was adamant.

“Ok, ok, I’ll back up,” I finally agreed, disappointed.

And I reversed back into the parking spot outside the house at the side of the street.

“Maybe it’s a sign,” he said. (The name of the real estate agency that carried the house I so wanted was named “Black Bear,” so it certainly was apropos.) I felt hopeful. It certainly wasn’t every day (or like, ever!), that one sees bears in the city!

I resumed the back and forth, bringing random things to my car.

Then there they were, in my view.

One of the baby bears climbed over a chain link fence into a neighbor’s yard and perused the garden.

They hung out on the grass nonchalantly, sniffing here and eating there.

When they disappeared a little later and I thought they had gone (hopefully back to whenever they had come from), there they were again, climbing a big tree directly across from me. All three of them up there, just carefree.

It was in the midst of this bear business that the phone call came.

We had gotten the house!

We were ecstatic. A huge sigh of relief.

And so our planned beer to accompany the drumming up the possibilities of our flight became a celebratory beer instead.

 

The moral of the story here?

For me, there are two.

One, that there are no “bad” dog breeds. But there are bad dog owners. It makes me sad but moreover angry that there are breeds that have been given an exaggerated and unfair bad rap.

If a dog is trained to be aggressive, then yes, it will be aggressive, and it doesn’t matter what the breed.

The people who automatically rule out certain breeds in rental homes/apartments or that carry insurance policies that do are only feeding into and perpetuating the stereotype.

There is nothing that is either all good or all bad, just as not ALL dogs of a certain breed should be so rashly deemed “aggressive,” or any such other negative characteristic. It is a stereotype, a generality, and misconception—and one that needs to be challenged, broken.

I would go so far as to say it is discriminatory – discriminatory against certain dogs! Greta (my German Shepherd) was being discriminated against! And in the end, as silly as it may sound, I actually began to feel like I was being discriminated against because I owned a certain dog breed. (“Equal housing opportunity” did not seem so accurate.)

The second moral is to not give up. Even though the hours I spent online searching a jillion websites for a place to live was not so fun and ultimately quite tedious, I couldn’t let myself become so disheartened that I just gave up. I couldn’t. I HAD to find a place to live.

Which parallels other things in life– other goals, other dreams, other things that are important to you that you are free to promise to yourself are non-negotiable.

Don’t give up. If something is important enough to you to not take “no” for an answer, with persistence and patience, you’re bound to eventually succeed—to complete your goal, to make your dreams a reality.

 

I love my dog. And I would never ever ever consider living somewhere without her.

If I hadn’t kept on searching and nagging or if I just simply hadn’t found a place, if it truly didn’t exist, then the tent it would be. And she would’ve trucked on with me. But I’m so glad it does exist, that we’re in a nice little home, with a fenced in yard, and she can roam about free and happy.

And you know what our sweet elderly neighbor said?

“Oh, I’m so glad you have that dog. It’s good to have her here. It makes me feel safe.”

Because is she alert? Protective? Loyal? A natural guard dog? Of course. Yes, she’s a German Shepherd. But that certainly doesn’t make her aggressive. And anyone who knows her would agree.

 

BTW: here’s a little pic & bio about the German Shepherd in question, miss Greta von bon, in case you don’t know her : )

I would LOVE to hear from you.

Leave a comment and tell me: Have you ever owned a dog breed that’s been misunderstood? What can we do to change the stereotypes that surround these wonderful animal companions?

Note: At the time of starting to write this little piece I was in fact “homeless” in Asheville, but thanks to the huge generosity of two kind souls who opened their home to me, I had a warm safe place to sleep until I moved into my (Shepherd friendly 🙂 new place.

Note 2: During my search, I DID finally find 2 rental companies that allowed German Shepherds. Alpha Real Estate-provided they personally met the dog to make sure it wasn’t in fact “aggressive.” (Now this I think is a much more reasonable approach. Take it on a case by case basis—don’t rule out a whole breed.) And Black Bear-whose policy it was to check with the owner. If you know of any more in the Asheville area please feel free to share in the comments to help out others facing a similar dilemma!

p.s. If you missed the picture of the bears it’s because you’re not a VIP! Sign up for Stella Deer emails and next time you won’t miss a thing : )