Bumper Sticker seen around town: œWag More. Bark Less.

OK, readers, I promised a column about Pets and Real Estate in Colorado Springs. I thought at first that I might not have a lot to say about this topic, but as I got going, more and more items came to my attention. I  even had to make a two-parter! Here™s the thing about pets and real estate: to some of us, pets are family, and their comfort (or legality”I™ll get to that) makes a difference in where we choose to live.

We have a client who lives in Falcon. She™d like to move up to a little larger house in the trees in Black Forest. As it happens, she™s a dog person. She breeds and shows St. Bernards, purely for the love of it (most responsible breeders will tell you they don™t make money from their dogs), and so Brandy also has a day job. The problem is that covenants in the Black Forest area often restrict the number of dogs you can have on your property. That makes sense in the normal scheme of things; you don™t want packs of dogs roaming around out there, making trouble. It™s just that St. Bernard litters can be big (see the photo on our Dog Page of the 12-pup litter!) Enter Super Realtor! Yes, this is where your real estate professional goes to work, calling listing agents, builders and some Super Realtor contacts to find out which sections of Black Forest would be a good fit for Brandy and her sometimes large family (again, see the Photos; and I do mean large).

One more pet item for this post: I talked to my friend Debbie Stavish, who owns Deb™s Gardening, a full-service landscaping company, 719-459-1301. She™s just come back from Denver, where she attended a presentation by Elizabeth Bublitz about pet-friendly landscaping. Elizabeth wrote a book called œPaw Friendly Landscapes”How to share the turf when your backyard belongs to Barney. Here™s a synopsis of the book from the Paw Friendly Website: œYou™ll learn the basics of having a beautiful backyard that makes everyone happy and safe in any climate. You will also learn about how to protect your pets from toxic houseplants and other hazards, how to keep your pups from œdigging to China, and more great tips on how to keep your landscape living¦and livable. The book is available at Black Cat Books in Manitou Springs, and Deb is planning on incorporating many of the concepts from Elizabeth™s work into her landscaping, so you don™t have to go all the way to Denver to work with a pet-conscious designer. So, if you already own real estate in Colorado Springs, you can get help designing landscaping that will be beautiful, functional, and healthy for your pets, too.