Apartment living in a dog-eat-dog world

By Jessica Tapp

More and more Australians are choosing inner city apartments over suburban houses, but does that really mean they should stay in the pet ownership doghouse?

Australia has one of the highest rates of pet ownership in the world: 40 per cent of households own a dog.

University of Western Sydney researcher Emma Power is looking at the experiences of people living in apartments with pooches.

"High density apartments are becoming more common as governments try and deal with some of the challenges of urban sustainability," Dr Power said.

"But they find that there's the challenge of actually creating a sense of community amongst residents."

Dr Power says part of the solution is to build more pet-friendly apartments, because people with dogs have a stronger sense of community.

"When they go out for a walk, they tend to meet and chat with people that they don't already know. Because of that, they report that their neighbourhoods are friendly, and that they have support networks in those places," she said.

Dr Power expects her study will find similar results for dog owners living in apartments.

"Pet-friendly apartments are becoming more and more common in Sydney," she said.

"You go back 10 years ago and you'd only have one or two, but there's entire suburbs that have them now."

Sydney suburbs such as Pyrmont and Zetland have pet-friendly apartments already.

Dr Power says the number of pet-friendly apartments have increased over the past decade.

"We've got developers who are specifically thinking OK, we want to have a pet friendly development, what do we need to do?"

Dr Power hopes that her research will encourage councils and developers to think about four-legged friends when building new units.

She says she wants more strata laws and pet-friendly design features to be considered for high-density apartments.

"Whether that's a council who needs to interact with the developers, or whether it's developers actually thinking about it as they go into the design stage."

She says parks and balconies or windows that dogs can look out of are fetching design aspect for pet owners.

"So it's not revolutionising design necessarily, but more about reminding them of the features that can help to make that relationship work."

With an increase of apartment dwellers, design features that make it easier for people to keep their dogs and good relationships with their neighbours are sure to keep tails wagging.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/04/14/3191410.htm