Putting Property Managers & Pet Owners on the Same Page
by Carole VanSickle Ellis
When John Bradford, founder and CEO of digital, third-party pet-screening platform PetScreening, first had the idea for his company, he already had firsthand experience with the benefits and potential pitfalls property owners face when they elect to allow pets in their rental properties.
Bradford, who had been a professional property manager for years and also ran a property management company, knew the risks associated with pets and rentals, but he firmly believed the pets, themselves, deserved an advocate as much as their owners. Unlike the majority of property managers at that time, Bradford believed property management could be that advocate, creating a better situation for every party involved in the complicated pet-rental-property-management equation.
“Any time you have a living creature in a property, there is more risk,” Bradford said, adding, “That creature could damage property by going to the bathroom indoors or chewing on some part of the property, or it could even bite someone. But the truth is that this does not usually happen. I wanted to create a pet-screening company that would show if a lot of data is available about a pet and its pet-parent [it is possible to] show the possible household-related risk they present, together, to the asset itself.”
Bradford noted 70% of American households have at least one pet, with an average of 1.8 cats per household and 1.6 dogs per household.
“They are everywhere,” he said. “As a property manager, I allowed pets, but many managers and property owners do not.” Bradford said non-pet-friendly properties tend to collect lower rents and retain tenants for shorter periods of time, making the ability to welcome a resident’s furry or scaled friends extremely important for an investor’s bottom line.
“Even before COVID, more than three in every five households had a pet,” said Jennifer Stoops, who ran Bradford’s property management company during his tenure in the state legislature and is now senior vice president of Industry Relations at PetScreening. She continued, “However, even in pet-friendly properties, there have historically been breed restrictions or weight limits. That forces residents into a situation where they are lying to the management company about the pet and they are hiding the pet. It is those situations that historically cause serious property damage.”
PetScreening is based on the premise that being non-pet-friendly is detrimental in the property management space. “Our service helps property management companies mitigate risk while eliminating traditional tools like breed restrictions and replacing them with data and information on each animal individually,” Stoops said. This risk assessment results in a “FIDO Score™” a trademarked evaluation system developed by PetScreening and designed to bring standardization and transparency to pet risk that property managers can use to determine if a pet should be allowed to move into the unit and what types of deposits or pet rents might be necessary.
Stoops explained, “As consumers, we all have a FICO score that helps assess financial responsibility. We created the FIDO Score to do the same for pets, evaluating risk based on data, not assumptions. This approach enables property managers to make more informed, consistent, and defensible decisions around approvals, deposits, and pet-related revenue strategies.”
Bradford explained, “We want everyone who has a pet to be able to live with their pet, but property managers also have a right to know what residents are bringing into the property when it comes to pets and animals. Residents must play by the property manager’s rules, such as committing to keeping their pets vaccinated, walking them on a leash, and cleaning up after them.”
He noted going “on record” acknowledging these rules goes a long way toward creating positive pet experiences for residents and property managers because everyone is on the same page about their responsibilities and the pets in question before the lease is signed. To this end, PetScreening also collects pictures, breed data, and size of the animals at the time a resident applies for a unit. The digital profiles can be easily shared on work orders so maintenance staff can access them to see what pets should or should not be living in the property.
“We always avoid being punitive, but we also believe the best way to embrace pet ownership in rental properties is for pet owners to know all the rules and acknowledge them before they sign the lease,” Bradford said. “Going through the PetScreening platform indicates they fully understand the pet policies and are legally on the record with everything they have provided.”
PetScreening lives its policy of pet inclusivity every day; a quick peek at the website reveals employees’ pets featured prominently and, in cases where the risk profile is appropriate, those pets get to come to work, get walked by the PetScreening designated dog-walker, and enjoy quality time with their humans.
Treating Every Pet Like the Individual It Is
Bradford said PetScreening empowers pet owners and property managers to work together to establish a clear snapshot of past pet behaviors and past owner behaviors. PetScreening’s national pet incident database is a crucial element in establishing a risk profile for a pet and owner. A property manager can share pet-related incidents on the platform, such as pet property damage or a dog bite. If the same resident applies in the future with a different property manager, then this prior reported incident comes to light.
“We codify the formal record when it comes to pet policy management. We try to ensure people tell us the truth about their pets and, if they choose to be untruthful, then they are on the legal record doing so. It’s a powerful tool in a court of law. Property managers can be sure their properties are equipped to handle those animals,” Bradford said. He continued, “We want to make sure pet owners know where they can go and property managers know there is a platform that will keep them protected by sharing those rules.” He also noted most pet owners who are willing to omit information on an application about a pet will balk at actually lying outright about the animal, making PetScreening’s application process an easy way to encourage honesty without forcing property managers into confrontations with applicants and residents.
Making everyone aware of the presence of pets and the rules surrounding those pets improves safety outcomes and general comfort for everyone, said Taylor Jenkins, vice president and general manager for FidoAlert and BetterPet, two offshoots of the parent brand, PetScreening.
“Using PetScreening means that everyone in a community, whether they have a pet or not, can rest assured that all of the pets at a property have been screened, are up to date on their vaccinations, and have owners who have accepted some certain common-ground responsibilities laid out by the property manager,” he explained.
Jenkins continued, “As a company, we are working to enable property managers to use data to inform their pet-related decisions, and also to make residential environments a better, more comfortable fit for people who love pets and those who may not be as comfortable around them.” Through BetterPet, PetScreening provides educational materials not just for pet owners, but also for people who do not necessarily own or even like domesticated animals. “We make resources available to help create positive experiences for everyone who encounters a pet on the property, whether you want to know the right elevator etiquette when riding with dogs or the appropriate way to introduce yourself to a cat,” Jenkins said. These materials are available to all pet owners who go through the PetScreening process and to property managers using PetScreening in their communities.
Fact-Checking for Fur Babies
Property managers face a vast array of animal-related challenges whether they choose to permit pets in rentals or not, and those challenges are becoming increasingly complicated as more and more residents adopt pets during their tenure in a property or bring their furry friends with them when they move in. With the rise in numbers of households with pets, property managers have found themselves compelled to loosen restrictions on the types and number of pets permitted in units.
“When I got started in the industry, we had what was called a ‘guard dog breed’ list,” Stoops recalled. “Everyone believed the guard dog breeds were excluded from rentals because insurance companies would not cover properties that permitted these breeds. However, when PetScreening launched, they made a call to the insurance company to find out the parameters of the restrictions. It turned out those restrictions did not exist. It was just that no one had fact-checked them.”
Stoops said much of the property management industry’s evolution over the past 20 years has come from replacing what she described as “legacy thinking” with verified data and technology-driven insights. “That shift from assumption to validation is where real progress happens,” Stoops said.
PetScreening does not just fact-check breed and insurance myths; the company also has introduced one of the industry’s only centralized pet-related incident reporting databases. Stoops said proudly, “We are bringing a new level of transparency and accountability to rental housing [and] giving property managers visibility they have never had before.” She continued, “From documented pet damage and unauthorized animals to bite incidents, fraudulent ESA claims, and even vaccination misrepresentation, these records follow the pet profile across participating properties, and the data-driven continuity allows operators to identify and mitigate risk more effectively.”
“Risk does not always come from the obvious places,” Stoops concluded. “It is not just about breed or size; it is also about behavior, history, and accountability.”
Incident reports are not the only thing that follow pets who have been through the PetScreening process, Jenkins noted. PetScreening also provides a program called FidoAlert, which connects a vast network of users to owners of lost pets through SMS technology. “Our goal is to keep pets out of shelters and reunite them with their owners as quickly as possible,” Jenkins explained. “When a user notifies the system of a lost pet, a text message is immediately distributed in the community in the area in which the pet was lost. That kind of localized scale is essential in bringing lost pets home.” Along with the text distribution, FidoAlert also immediately creates printable and digital posters for the owner of the lost pet, and the service is entirely free for every pet owner who has been through the PetScreening process during their rental application.
FidoAlert, an Amber Alert network for lost pets, is the brainchild of Bradford, whose mission is to help every lost pet find its way home. In addition to FidoAlert and BetterPet, PetScreening also supports its own nonprofit program, Down for Pets, a national program that pairs individuals with Down syndrome with shelter animals and provides grants and additional resources to assist in caring for those adopted animals.
“We have had everyone from a four-year-old to adults living independently adopt through this program, and it has been a great success,” Bradford said. “Our goal is always to do amazing and good things for people and pets. That is what is really important, and every time someone uses PetScreening, they can know they are benefiting and also helping other people benefit because our top priority is to do good.”
Sidebar 1
By the Numbers
$400 million // reclaimed potential pet revenue
7.6 million // units/doors covered by PetScreening
3.5 million // generated pet profiles
28,000 // pet-friendly companies served
81% // percentage of operators reporting rising pet ownership across portfolios
43% // percentage of renters who report having pets (vs. 70% of households reporting nationally)
30% // percentage increase in pet revenue reported by PetScreening clients
26% // percentage of PetScreening clients who report pet-related damage to units (vs. 36% reported by non-clients)
41% // percentage increase in resident applications upon adopting pet-inclusive practices
27% // percentage increase in reported resident satisfaction upon adopting pet-inclusive practices
23% // percentage boost in lease renewals upon adopting pet-inclusive policies
Sidebar 2
Solving the Service-Animal Conundrum
One of the biggest challenges property managers face when it comes to animals in residence in their buildings is working with the increasingly complicated classification of emotional support animals and other assistance animals. According to the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, an emotional support animal (ESA) is “a pet prescribed by a licensed mental health professional to provide therapeutic comfort, companionship, and support to individuals with diagnosed health or psychiatric disabilities.” ESAs typically do not have special training to perform designated tasks but, instead, help alleviate symptoms by being present.
Not to be confused with ESAs, service animals are, according to ADA.gov, dogs of any size and breed that have been trained to perform a task directly related to a person’s disability. In nearly all cases, businesses and non-profits open to the public and state/local government facilities must allow service animals access with their owners. Failure to do so may constitute discrimination against a person with a disability.
There is a great deal of confusion surrounding what may and may not be asked about these animals and how to determine if the animal has actually been prescribed by a health professional. Unfortunately, there is also a booming industry dedicated to creating “fake” ESAs in order to enable owners to take beloved pets into areas where animals are not allowed or in order to avoid paying pet fees. Property managers must walk a fine line when dealing with ESAs in particular because the laws are more ambiguous than for service animals.
“At PetScreening, we make sure that people meet the true framework of the law to help property managers determine if an animal is truly an emotional support animal or if an applicant is committing service animal or ESA fraud,” said John Bradford, founder and CEO of PetScreening. “Our platform enables property managers to make decisions based on the specific dog’s history while also putting applicants in a position where they do not feel like they have to lie to move in with their dog,”
he concluded.
Learn more about PetScreening and how to work with residents who own ESAs or service animals at PetScreening.com.
