Moving to Canada with cats and renting
 

Hello!







I’m relocating to Canada later this year and looking for advice on taking cats to Vancouver. (Or outer suburbs) I know about being able to take them on plane as carry on etc. I was just wondering if people had experience taking 3 cats, and how they found being able to find somewhere to live with them. Did you rent? Buy? Any advice welcome as I’m worried we won’t be able to find a pet friendly rental! Ideally in Vancouver, but also looking at places like Burnaby, New Westminster, Surrey etc

Re: Moving to Canada with cats and renting
 

First thing is to check the city bylaw allows you to have three cats.

Here in Ontario a landlord cannot discriminate if you have pets (as long as you are within the number permitted by bylaw) but 99% will panic if they see an application with three cats in it…

Re: Moving to Canada with cats and renting
 

"First thing is to check the city bylaw allows you to have three cats." Really, that's got to be a joke surely - what happened to Canada being the the land of the free?

Re: Moving to Canada with cats and renting
 

That was America. It's nearby but a different country.

Re: Moving to Canada with cats and renting
 

In Vancouver and other parts of the Metro Vancouver area, you will often see places for rent with "no pets allowed", or "1 small pet allowed". added at the end.

The same also applies to buying an apartment or condo in a strata building.

I hope you also realise that cats here (and in much of Canada) should be kept indoors ................ outdoor cats have a very short life expectancy.

Even in downtown Vancouver, there are predators aplenty .......... eagles, and coyotes to name only two..

Re: Moving to Canada with cats and renting
 

Could you supply a link with more detail? I can't vouch for the wilds of Vancouver, but that's not at all the common experience in Ontario, whether rural or urban.

Or maybe we have smarter cats. ;-)

Re: Moving to Canada with cats and renting
 

Two cats here, one mutilated and without front claws. Both use the cat door and come and go all summer. One's 14, one probably 13.

Re: Moving to Canada with cats and renting
 

My one cat was indoor/outdoor in BC and lived to be 20.

Re: Moving to Canada with cats and renting
 

I cannot supply a link .............. personal experience is what I base it on.

We live in south Vancouver, often see coyotes (single or in pairs) on our street, which is one block away from a major north/south artery from downtown Vancouver to cities and towns across the Fraser River, and thence to the US border.

There are always notices posted to telephone poles everywhere in this area re missing cats and small dogs that have been allowed out.

The newspaper frequently carries news items about cats or small dogs being taken right in front of their owners.

There are a number of houses all over Vancouver built in the 1920s through the 1930s which have large lots with lots of trees and shrubberies where coyotes, raccoons etc can live ............. the kind of houses that are now being redeveloped into 3 or 4 smaller houses. We live about 4 blocks away from some of those, although pour area was not developed until the 1940s and '50s, so our houses are much smaller and on small lots. It is considered urban, not suburban.

If you live in the more suburban areas, then you may well add bears to the mix!

Eagles can be seen regularly, and reported as picking up the odd cat or small dog.

Coyotes are opportunistic here, and very adapted to urban city lif ................ they are seen on downtown streets ........ you may well have read about the "vicious" ones in Stanley Park last summer who were attacking visitors because they were so adapted to being fed by humans. Humans do the same thing all over Vancouver.

Is that enough for you??

I'm not telling tall tales, by any means!

If you want published information, Google the Vancouver Sun and look for articles on coyotes in Vancouver.

Re: Moving to Canada with cats and renting
 

Lucky you!

There has been one ad in the Lost and Found section of the Vancouver Sun for over a year now for a car missing in East Vancouver .............. it is the same ad (same description, same area, same name). The owners are obviously desperate! Other ads for missing cats & small dogs usually run only for 2 or 3 weeks.

Re: Moving to Canada with cats and renting
 

Hi, we tried to bring one cat from the UK as hand luggage when we came in '94, despite booking him in etc at the airport check-in we were told we could not take him as the first aircraft was a smaller biz jet type of aircraft. We transferred to a 747 in Amsterdam and ,in theory, we could have taken the cat on that plane IF we had him with us. HOWEVER we were also told that if we took a short hop flight from the UK and transferred to another flight departing from Europe the cat would have had to spend some time in quarantine in Amsterdam before being allowed onward! The cat was on to us a month later by a friend who dropped him off at heathrow on a direct flight to Montreal as cargo. So make sure you have a direct flight and any necessary vet certificates/inoculations before traveling.
We had already rented a house and never mentioned we were bringing a cat to the landlord, not intentional deceit, just never considered it! We just transferred the rent each month and no-one ever queried it. Our cat was allowed outside, most people get their 'indoor' cats de-clawed but we never did.

Re: Moving to Canada with cats and renting
 

Rentals all over the lower mainland are expensive and hard to come by. The vacancy rate is very low and pet friendly more and more difficult to come by. Lots of landlords are reluctant to support newly arrived applicants as they have no financial history or references. I would do your research before getting here and make sure you were you want to end up.always worth looking on the local expats Facebook pages and asking if any are landlords and can advise you.