How to write a pet resume for a landlord
A pet resume answers the only question a landlord has about your animal: will it cost me money or complaints? What to put on the page, and what to prove.
The apartment gets a steady stream of viewings, and by that evening several people have applied. One of them has a dog. The landlord has sat down with the other applicants and has seen your dog once, briefly, in a hallway, on a lead. Everything they conclude about that animal, they are about to conclude from nothing.
A pet resume is one page that fills the gap. It answers the only question a landlord has about your animal: will this cost me money or complaints? So it carries the basics, the vaccination and neutering status, how the animal behaves when nobody is home, a reference from someone who has watched it live somewhere, and your contact details. One page, with the proof attached behind it.
What is a pet resume?
It is a short written profile of your animal, handed over with your rental application. Some people call it a pet CV. The format is not standardised and no authority issues one, which is why template sites do a steady trade in them and why most of the ones circulating are padded with photographs.
The useful version is closer to a reference than to a pitch: a page a stranger can scan once and come away knowing what kind of animal is moving in.
What is the landlord worried about?
Three things: damage to the unit, complaints from neighbours, and a tenancy that ends badly and has to be unwound. Whether your dog is charming comes nowhere on the list. Everything on the page should speak to one of those three, or it is decoration.
That reframing matters, because it changes what goes in. “Loves belly rubs” speaks to none of them. “Crated during the workday since she was a puppy, no accidents in three years, last two landlords happy to be called” speaks to all three.
What goes on the page?
Eight fields, in this order. Anything else is an attachment or a cut.
| On the page | Why the landlord cares |
|---|---|
| Species, breed, age, weight | Sets the scale of everything else. A 4 kg senior cat and a young working dog are different propositions |
| Spayed or neutered, and when | Reduces marking, roaming and noise, and it is a yes-or-no fact |
| House-trained, and for how long | The single most direct answer to the damage question |
| Where the animal is during the day | Crated, one room, free roam, at daycare, with a walker. Names the risk window |
| Noise, honestly | If she barks at the door and stops, say exactly that |
| Vaccination status and your vet’s name | Shows the animal is under somebody’s care, and gives a callable third party |
| Previous landlord or caregiver, with permission to contact | The only line on the page that is not you vouching for yourself |
| Your name and number | Obvious, and routinely left off |
The fourth row is the one people skip and the one that does the most work. A landlord picturing a dog alone in an empty apartment for nine hours is imagining the worst version. Telling them it is a crate in the bedroom and a walker at one o’clock replaces the imagined version with a real one.
Can a landlord just say no?
Sometimes, and it depends on where the property is. This is worth a few minutes of checking rather than an assumption, because the answer varies by country, and inside a country it varies by province or state.
Ontario is a useful example because the rule is blunt. Section 14 of the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006 is titled “No pet” provisions void, and it reads in full: “A provision in a tenancy agreement prohibiting the presence of animals in or about the residential complex is void.” A no-pets clause in an Ontario lease is not a rule you are breaking. It is a line with no legal effect.
That is not the whole picture, and the rest of it is the reason this article exists. The same Act, at section 76, sets out when a landlord can still succeed in evicting a tenant over an animal: where the past behaviour of an animal of that species has substantially interfered with other people’s reasonable enjoyment of the building, where its presence has caused a serious allergic reaction, or where the species or breed is inherently dangerous.
Read those two sections together and the shape of the problem changes. The clause on the page is void; your animal’s behaviour is what decides anything. A pet resume is evidence about behaviour, offered early, by the only person who has any.
What proof should you attach?
Attach documents rather than adjectives. Each claim on the page that can be evidenced should have something behind it, and the attachments stay separate so the page itself stays short.
The vaccination record is the usual first ask, and it is the one people scramble for at the worst moment. Getting a copy from your clinic is its own small process, covered in getting your pet’s medical records from the vet, and the same copy does duty for boarding and travel, which is the subject of vaccination records for travel and boarding. A neutering certificate, a microchip registration in your name, and a short reference letter from a previous landlord round it out. If none of that exists in one place yet, the guide to pet health records is where to start, because a move is the moment the gaps show.
A reference is worth more than the rest combined, and it has a shelf life. Ask for it while you are still a tenant in good standing, not eight months after you moved out.
What should you leave out?
Photographs beyond one clear headshot. The animal’s nicknames. Anything written in the animal’s voice, which reads as charming to you and as unserious to somebody deciding about their property.
Also leave out claims you cannot support. “Never barks” is disproved by one neighbour on one bad night, and it takes the credibility of the whole page with it. “Barks when somebody knocks, settles in a few seconds” survives contact with reality, which is the only test that matters here.
Where Dana fits
Most of a pet resume is a record you either kept or you did not. Dana holds the health record the page depends on: vaccines with their dates, the weight trend, the microchip number and your vet’s contact, in one place rather than across a drawer and three inboxes. The Records Vault shares documents through a code-gated link that expires, so a landlord can see the vaccination certificate without you emailing your pet’s file to a stranger. And because every log carries who did it and when, the house-training and routine claims on your page have something behind them if anyone asks.
Questions people ask
What is a pet resume?
A one-page profile of your animal that you hand to a landlord with your rental application. It covers who the animal is, its vaccination and neutering status, how it behaves when nobody is home, and who can vouch for that. It exists because a landlord deciding between applicants has no other way to tell a quiet, house-trained ten-year-old from an unknown risk.
Do landlords actually read them?
The ones weighing two similar applications do, because it answers a question they were going to have to ask anyway. Treat it as removing an objection rather than as winning an argument. A page that is honest and short gets read; four pages of photos does not.
Should the pet resume be one page?
Yes. One page, with the proof attached behind it as separate documents. The vaccination record, the neutering certificate and any reference letter are attachments, not body text, so the page itself stays scannable.
What if my lease says no pets?
That depends entirely on where you live, and it is worth checking rather than assuming. In Ontario, for example, section 14 of the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006 makes a tenancy-agreement provision prohibiting animals void. Other places give landlords a free hand. This is not legal advice, so check your own province, state or country before you rely on it.
Should I mention a problem my dog used to have?
Mention it if a reference would mention it, and say what changed. A landlord who finds out later that you left something out stops trusting the rest of the page, and the rest of the page is the part doing the work.