Hi
Can anybody help. My husband and I live in an appartment with access to large communal gardens, surrounded by beautiful parks and heath land. As I am at home all day I would be able to give the puppy plenty of attention and exercise. We have our hearts set on a labrador retriever and would like to know whether you think it is possible to have a labrador in an appartment such as ours. I appreciate any help and advice. Thanks.

I think it is fantastic that you are at home all day, and obviously have the resources to look after a dog i.e. clean, interesting places to walk.

It is regardless whether your in an apartment or a large detached house, as long as you can offer the dog a settled, warm and secure happy home and have the time and finance needed.

Many people bring up dogs in far worse conditions and I think your dog regardless of breed will be very lucky indeed.

You have obviously put lots of thought into it :-)

Good Luck, Louise x

I think that the main problem would be any barking and whether it would annoy your neighbours. It can be fairly difficult to predict whether you will have a barking problem and if it is a short term, solvable one :) Obviously will be lessened if you are home a lot

Daisy

Thank you to all of you for your kind advice and response to my question. I don't think that a dog would annoy our neighbours as they are all out most of the day and we are on an outside wall, ground floor appartment. I do need to check the terms of the agreement re the communal gardens though but in any case there are plenty of parks nearby. My husband is more concerned that the flat will smell of dogs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Do Labradors have a strong odour?

All dogs smell doggy especially when theve been out in the wet! but I wouldnt say labradors were any worse than any other dog , sadly having a doggy smelling house is all part and parcel of being a dog owner!

I live in a house with communal gardens, so in a way my situation is similar to yours. The only problems you will find is that you can't just open a door to let your dog go outside to the toilet. It's not fair on the other residents even if you do make an effort to pick up after your dog and the gardens may not be secure (ours are unfenced). What I think you will have to be prepared to do is to get into a routine of taking your dog out for a walk three-four times a day i.e. first thing in the morning when you get up, midday, evening and possibly last thing at night. I'm sure your neighbours won't mind you using the gardens when your dog is a pup because you will need to get it outside quickly on occasions and frequently, but as it gets old enough for longer walks it will need to be taken futher afield. It sounds like you have some nice places to go walking. On a sunny day my two long to be outside and I find I have to take them on long walks to satisfy their desire to get out of the house. One compensation of not having a garden of one's own is that you get loads of exercise, and your dog gets plently of stimulating walks. When i did have a garden I only ever took mine for walks at weekends and never during the week, so in some ways they're better off now! It's definitely much harder work...but if your committed to putting that extra effort in then it's worth it.

I did live in a flat a few years back now and that's when i got my first two puppies (whippets). I had to get my landlord's permission first, and even then I was breaking the rules, because dogs weren't allowed. I lived on the first floor and I had to toilet train them to newspaper because I couldn't take them out into the gardens. The carpet became a real mess and they chewed all my landlord's furniture. I had to move out after 6 months because i was just getting too stressed at all the damage they were causing. Looking back it wasn't the best start to getting a puppy, but things have turned out fine now (although i never really got those dogs toilet trained due to the bad start they had). Your circumstances sound better though, so i don't want to put you off. i'm just reminiscing really.

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