Finding a place is tough. Finding a place when you have pets that you’re not willing to part with is even tougher. If you want to ensure that you and your furry friend have a place to hang your respective hats, keep these points in mind:

• Look Off the Beaten Path

You can apply to every apartment complex in town, pay their hefty application fees, and wind up without a place to stay after all. If you use services like Craigslist to find people subleasing or renting out small apartments, on the other hand, then you may be surprised at how flexible people can be.

• Talk to Friends

Friends with pets? Ask them to keep you in mind in case anyone moves out of their neighborhood any time soon. A recommendation from a current tenant can go a long way with a landlord, and you can get your name in there before someone else can swoop in and take the place.

• Get Rural

Do you really need to live in the city? Living just outside of town, renting a small home in the country not only helps to ensure greater chances of finding a place that allows pets, you’re also going to be saving money, as rural property tend to be less expensive, and taking a load off, as rural life tends to be less stressful. This isn’t an option for everyone, but if you telecommute, or if you drive a long distance to work regardless, country living can be a great way to facilitate the animal lover in you.

An animal is a responsibility, but it’s a responsibility that few of us would ever want to neglect. If you’re patient, then it shouldn’t be difficult to land a great pet-friendly place.

At one time, dogs were trained through methods that involved dominance and punishment. Over the years, however, studies have shown that positive reinforcement methods tend to be far more effective. Let’s look at five simple steps for training your dog through positive reinforcement.

• 1) Start off by creating one-word commands for your dog. They can be any words of your choosing; however, you must be consistent. For example, if you want your dog to sit and your command word is ‘down,’ you can’t switch it the next time to the word ‘sit.’
• 2) When your dog follows your commands, give him or her a treat as well as verbal praise. Even if you’re handing out treats all day long, for the first few weeks, your dog needs to be rewarded for every good thing that he or she does.
• 3) Don’t be mean when your dog doesn’t follow commands and directions just as you expect him or her to. Training will take several weeks, perhaps even months. It’s always important that you keep your training sessions short as well as fun.
• 4) After a few weeks have passed and your dog is consistently following commands, begin backing off a bit on number of treats you give. After a couple of months, there shouldn’t be a need to give out treats, but giving your dog verbal praise is something that should always be given.
• 5) For every new command that you want your dog to learn, remember that positive reinforcement is the best training method to carry out. Not only does it help to teach your dog certain behaviors, but in addition it will help strengthen the bond between the two of you.