According to Zillow, 72 percent of rental listings in the city are labeled “dog friendly.” What might a building for one require? Perhaps an elevator. And soundproof walls. And a chill landlord. It should be located next to a beautiful dog park. Have you thought about getting a cat? No? Well, welcome to city-dog math. How big a pooch can you handle?
Some big dogs make good apartment dogs.
I heard this theme a number of times from New York dog owners. Peter Kelly, a 27-year-old art adviser, lives with his partner in a tenth-floor, 1,100-square-foot one-bedroom apartment in Chelsea. In 2022, the pair adopted a Galgo, a Spanish breed of greyhound. They wanted a larger dog and went with a Galgo partly because these sorts of retired, rescued sight hounds are “very lazy.” Björn is 71 pounds but extremely tall and skinny, and “he sleeps on the couch all day and all night” in their open family room–kitchen space. “He does get a long walk and a short walk twice a day, but he doesn’t like to run that much,” says Kelly.
The Dog Math:
• Italian greyhound = pillow on the floor
• Whippet = love seat
• Galgo = L-shaped sectional
• Afghan hound = give it the primary bedroom and you sleep on the couch
In This Issue
Is My Cat a Prisoner?
You may have to think about your neighborhood more than you’d expect.
Not all big dogs are equal. Professional dog trainer Annie Grossman points out that many larger breeds, like Great Pyrenees or Siberian huskies, “were bred to be outside all the time.” It’s not just the biggest dogs, either. Grace Pozniak’s 51-pound foster pit-bull mix made her apartment feel way too small. Even though Judy was compact, “she would freak out in the space all the time.” Going outdoors wasn’t much better: “Bushwick was a tough place because she didn’t really get along well with other dogs, and she got super-distracted on walks and pulled intensely.”
The Dog Math: Living near a large, rambling park with off-leash hours, like Central, Prospect, or Riverside, can go a long way for the health and happiness of a herding dog.
For some dogs, the size of the apartment matters less than the size of the car.
Luke Marcoux, who shares a 1,200-square-foot Williamsburg two-bedroom with his wife and their 110-pound hound mix, thinks the exact size and specs of your apartment matter less for a big dog than owning an SUV does: “You have to have a car in order to take him anywhere, and we got an SUV because we needed a big, open trunk for him. I’ve always said, once you get past 40 or 50 pounds, it’s almost like you might as well get as big of a dog as you want because you’ll need a car.”
The Dog Math: Any dog over 50 pounds has to come with a parking space.
Your floor plan isn’t the only thing to consider.
Dr. Anna Kaufman, a Brooklyn-based veterinarian, doesn’t think the size of a dog has to correlate to the size of a home, but have you thought about the home’s altitude? “Something to keep in mind if you’re getting a larger dog in the city is having a plan for if they are injured and unable to do the stairs,” she says. “It could be something as simple as they broke a toenail and you have to keep them rested.”
The Dog Math: 40-pound dog: fourth floor max. 60 pounds: third floor. 80 pounds: second.
Puppies need more space than some big dogs do.
There are cases in which the smaller and younger the dog, the more indoor space they’ll need, at least temporarily. Kaufman says puppies living in the city should remain indoors until they’re fully vaccinated, unlike their suburban counterparts who can go outside in private yards.
The Dog Math: If your dog is under 16 weeks, don’t go under 600 feet.
But any dog can be taught to thrive in a studio.
Grossman owns the East Village–based School for the Dogs, which has a class called Barkour that she describes as “studio-apartment agility.” She says, “You can teach your dog to go around the coffee table and over a broomstick, or hop from one bench to another in a park.”
The Dog Math: How many figure eights can a ten-pound rat terrier running at a rate of 27 miles per hour in a 500-square-foot apartment make while weaving through the legs of a West Elm Bradley coffee table with a 9.7-inch vertical clearance and no more than two feet of extra space on three of its four sides? Show your work in the margins.
Is My Cat a Prisoner? And other ethical questions about pets like …
➭ Are We Forcing Our Pets to Live Too Long?
➭ Am I a Terrible Pet Parent?
➭ Why Did I Stop Loving My Cat When I Had a Baby?
➭ What Do Vets Really Think About Us and Our Pets?
➭ I Am Not My Animal’s Owner. So What Am I?
➭ Was I Capable of Killing My Cat for Bad Behavior?
➭ Should I Give My Terrier ‘Experiences’?
➭ Is There Such a Thing As a Good Fishbowl?
➭ Do Runaway Dogs Deserve to Be Free?
➭ Are We Lying to Ourselves About Emotional-Support Animals?
➭ How Agonizing Is It to Be a Pug?
