Advice on relocating with a Pitbull (Chicago/Seattle/Minneapolis)
 

I'm going to be moving in the near future and my choices are Chicago, Seattle and Minneapolis. I haven't decided which one yet, but need to decide soon. At the moment I'm leaning heavily toward Chicago. My problem is that instead of trying to sell my house in this market, I'm going to go ahead and rent it, and rent a place in the city I move to. I have a wonderful 7.5 year old girl and I'm expecting that finding a place with her will probably be difficult. I was wondering if anyone could advise me on these cities, their attitudes towards pit bulls, ability to find an apartment with a pit bull in those cities. I would love to hear other peoples experiences for these three places. Also if anyone knows of any resources, affordable pit friendly rentals, pit friendly apartment agencies (like the ones who help find you an apartment, not the ones who run them although either would be good), or anything else that may be of help for those cities in regard to my baby girl I would love to hear from you too.

You should check out the BSL threads. They are pretty up to date on the latest places where the banning is most, so you will be able to go by that to find the right place to begin your search. Also, give yourself ample time to find a place, because even IF the town does NOT have BSL, a lot of landlords will NOT rent to people with Pit Bull Types.

I live in the Minneapolis area. If you are going to buy a house in the area it will be pretty easy to find a place to live. If you are going to rent an apartment in this area it will be a little bit harder. I know there is an apartment building in uptown Minneapolis that has no rules about what kind of dog you have.

I have no advice, but good luck! Whatever you decide to do, where ever you go, please post and let us know, there's always someone looking for places to rent that are APBT friendly. Your experience, and success will benefit others who are looking. http://www.pitbull-chat.com/images/smilies/smile.png

Chicago is a great City and I know many people who live in the city and own pits. However I live in the suburbs so I am not much help with finding apartments that allow this breed. The city of Chicago does not have BSL so you are ok there and most of the surrounding suburbs do not have it either. When we looked for apartments we just asked everyplace before we went and looked. It took a lot more phone calls but I have never had a hard time finding a place to live around here and I have two Pits.
Good Luck and let me know if you need any more information.

I also live in the Minneapolis area! There is a Pit Bull rescue group called A Rotta Love Plus, they might be able to help!

http://www.arottalove.org/

Mn and chicago are pitt friendly. I lived in both areas and have many friends with pitts in the area. There is a pitt rescue in Woodbury, MN. I lived there and 2 or 3 times a week i would god and walk the pitts for them. They have alot if Pitts there

From what I have observed in Seattle, it's pretty hit and miss, kinda like here in Portland. For the most part they are friendly and nice to pitshttp://www.pitbull-chat.com/images/smilies/smile.png

The only problem with seattle is that our good friend collen lynn lives there (the creator of dogsbite.org). and she's aggressively pushing towards enforcing BSL in that area. I'd stay away from seattle just to be cautious.

I did noticed when I was doing some research on the area it seemed Seattle had a lot of moments of pit bull hysteria, now I know why. It makes me a bit nervous. I've been lucky enough so far to live in two places with her where they get very little (if any) bad press. In Durham everyone's kind of neutral. You don't see a lot of them and a few people are scared but for the most part no one cares. The place I lived in FL (and adopted here) you didn't see a lot either but every time I took her out everyone would want to come up and pet her. There seemed to be no stigma at all there. I've actually had more moments of people trying to get away/keep their kids away from my lab than my pit. And they were actually right especially with the kids. While he was a sweet dog and LOVED people he was a good bit larger than my pit and could be overly enthusiastic, easily knocking over even bigger kids with one swipe of his gyrating rear end that he just threw around to get scratched. Life was a full contact sport for him. Candy on the other hand always seems to know just how to act around different people. She'll play rough with some and be gentle as can be with others.

I'm glad to hear good things about Chicago and Minneapolis. I am really leaning heavily toward Chicago I just didn't want a place where I'm going to be forced out into the suburbs to find a rental with my girl. One of the reasons I decided to move was to get back in a more urban environment and that would defeat the purpose (although at the same time one of the reasons I'm not 100% sold on Chicago is because Seattle and Minneapolis have easier access to outdoor activies.) Chicago does seem to have a lot of du/tri/fourplex type of apartments though which I'm guessing are the way to go since they're likely to not have corporate owners.

caliber5, a few people have mentioned that rescue to me so I'm definately going to check them out. They seem to be well respected up there.