Breed restrictions and emotional support animals
Housing situations
The landlord's breed list is a policy. The city's breed ordinance is not, and that difference decides most of these.
A landlord's breed list
This is a pet policy. A granted accommodation is an exception to it, and a refusal has to rest on an individualised assessment of the actual animal rather than on what it is. A breed's reputation is not evidence about the dog in front of you, and a blanket refusal is not an assessment.
A breed-specific local ordinance is a different matter entirely. Where a city prohibits keeping the breed at all, a reasonable accommodation does not create a right to keep an animal the law prohibits, and a landlord refusing on that basis is on solid ground.
The insurance argument
The objection you will usually meet is that the landlord's insurer excludes the breed. That is an undue financial burden argument and it has to be evidenced: whether cover is genuinely unavailable, what it would actually cost, and whether the landlord has looked. A sentence in a policy document is the start of that argument rather than the end of it.
Weight and size rules
Same analysis. A weight limit is a pet rule, and a granted accommodation excepts it. Size can feature in a genuine burden argument in a very small unit, but it has to be argued rather than asserted.
Common questions
- Can my landlord refuse my ESA because of its breed?
- Not on the breed alone. They can assess the individual animal, and they can rely on a local ordinance that prohibits the breed outright.
- What if the insurer really will not cover it?
- That is a real argument, and it turns on evidence. A landlord who has not checked has not made it.