Here's a few things I've been struggling with. I'd love to have a dog.
One is I am a renter - very few house owners allow pets. Any thoughts there?
I don't know what the situation is like in Europe but in the US there are a fair number of apartments and houses that allow dogs. The choice is definitely going to be more limited but most housing sites allow you to search by "allows dogs" so you can see what the housing options would be like.
Generally I think smaller landlords are more likely to allow medium and large dogs (say 50lbs and higher). Larger apartment complexes, if they allow dogs, will likely have weight restrictions (e.g. must be less than 40lbs, etc.).
Many apartments also have breed restrictions. Basically this means they do not allow dogs such as pits, rotts, dobermans, akitas, GSD and mixes thereof (pitts are always on the list but other breeds tend to vary).
Another is that I have a bit of trouble imagining my dog to be home alone quite alot of the time, and it somehow feels wrong to do that to a social animal. Not talking about the occasional travel, a doggie hotel I'm comfortable with.
Dogs spend a long time sleeping everyday and our dog was fine with our 8-10 hour days at work. I know because on days when i stayed home she spent almost the entire time sleeping.
If we knew we had a longer day we either put the dog in doggie daycare or had a walker come in during the middle of the day.
I think the key is to make sure that your pet gets a lot of exercise and they will sleep soundly. At a minimum we walked her twice day for at least an hour total.
Edit -- it's become very popular for tech companies to allow workers to bring their dog to work. Of course they need to be well behaved, not bark, not jump on people, be potty-trained, etc.
