The 15-inch dog
We pulled the pet bylaws from 2,000+ samples drawn from our pool of BC strata reviews. Most of those buildings own a tape measure.
Start with what a strata gets if it never writes a pet bylaw at all. The province's Standard Bylaws allow one dog or one cat, a reasonable number of fish, some small caged mammals, and up to two caged birds. [1] That last clause is why "up to two caged birds" appears, word for word, in about one pet bylaw in seventeen, and birds of some kind in one bylaw in ten. Nobody sat in a meeting and argued about parakeets. They inherited a poultry limit from the year 2000 and never touched it.
The buildings that did touch it went in one of two directions. About 88% of the corporations we have read allow both dogs and cats; about 6% allow no pets at all; a small group allows cats but not dogs. Among the ones that allow pets, the most common cap is two, and a cap of one is the runner-up. So far, so sensible.
Then there is the measuring. Roughly one building in seven puts a weight limit on the dog, and about one in eight puts a height limit on it. The heights are specific: fourteen inches at the shoulder, fifteen, sixteen, eighteen, twenty, twenty-four. The metric buildings say thirty centimetres, thirty-six, fifty. The weights run from twenty pounds to seventy-five, with ten, fifteen and twenty kilograms for the buildings that converted. Not one bylaw we have read explains how the measurement is taken, who takes it, or what happens when a puppy that was fourteen inches in March is sixteen inches in June. Council approval is mentioned in about one bylaw in six, which is presumably where the tape measure comes out.
Not one bylaw explains what happens when a puppy that was fourteen inches in March is sixteen inches in June.
Breed lists are more common than either measurement: about one bylaw in six names breeds it will not have. Pit bulls lead by a wide margin, then Rottweilers, then a rotating cast of Akitas, Dobermans and Staffordshires. A few bylaws skip the list and simply ban "vicious" dogs, leaving the definition to whoever is on council that year.
The aquarium clauses are our favourite. About one bylaw in thirty caps fish by the gallon: ten gallons in the strictest, then twenty, twenty-five, thirty-five, fifty. We assume someone once had a very large tank on a very old floor. A smaller group bans reptiles, and some of those go further, to amphibians, arachnids and insects, which suggests a specific incident we would very much like to read the minutes of. One building in twenty requires pets to be carried, not walked, through the lobby and elevators. One in two hundred wants a photograph on file.
Two things are true no matter what the bylaw says. A pet living in a unit when a new restriction passes gets to stay, though it cannot be replaced, and about one bylaw in eighty spells that out. [1] And certified guide and service dogs are outside all of this, as is the strata's duty to accommodate people who need an assistance animal. [1] The fifteen-inch rule, in other words, has more exceptions than it looks.
If your dog is fifteen and a half inches, we cannot help you. We can tell you what the bylaw says before you make an offer, which is the next best thing.
How we counted. Based on 2,000+ samples drawn from our pool of BC strata reviews. Figures come from the bylaws in those samples, searched for numeric limits, breed lists, aquarium sizes and procedural rules. Every pattern described appears in at least three unrelated buildings; no rule is quoted verbatim and no building is identified. Shares are of corporations whose bylaws address the topic. If you use these figures, a link back to this post is appreciated.