“Visiting” dog advice

[Wesley Jensen]

Hey I am searching for some advice on how to handle my current situation. I bought a duplex a year ago and my girlfriend and I house hack and live in the upstairs unit. We have an extremely friendly 11 month old poodle mix. I had new tenants move in below a couple months ago, and she has a small Shih tzu. My lease clearly states “only pet living on the premise is: Shih tzu”, and “ any changes in pet occupancy will require written consent of landlord”. During the first week the tenant moved in I saw her with two dogs (Shih tzu and a dachshund) and asked what was going on. She states it’s a family dog and kinda bounces around staying with everyone, and that “it will be staying here occasionally”. I was kind of taken aback by the abruptness of the statement and just said “okay” and never pushed it any further. It appears to be in the apartment for weeks on end now, and recently had two separate incidents. She mentioned her fan wasn’t working and after setting a time with her I went in to fix it when nobody was home. The dog was extremely aggressive barking and showing it’s teeth and I had to use a broom that it was afraid of to keep it from getting too close. I’m a dog person and this was surprising to me that it didn’t warm up or I was even afraid to put my hand out for it to smell and calm down. The second incident was yesterday when my girlfriend was walking our dog. She came back to our house and found the shih tzu tied up to our dog run (if we aren’t using it I have no problem with her using it), but the dachshund was off the leash and aggressively ran at my dog nipping and barking at it. My tenant had her grandchild in her arms so couldn’t stop it, so my girlfriend quickly brought ours upstairs and sent me a very upset text about the aggressive dog and not being able to use our own yard because of a dog that isn’t even on the lease! How do I handle this situation? Should it be added to the lease? (If it was originally I wouldn’t have thought anything of it as it’s not a generally aggressive breed) If that dog bites someone do I have any liability? (there is wording in the lease that the tenant assumes full responsibility for personal injuries and damages due to pets). There is also wording that the dog should be leashed at all times on property, but this would be hard to enforce because we are training our pup and often times have him off leash to teach come and other skills. On a side note I have a statement in the lease saying “pets shall not urinate or defecate inside the premise, this includes “pee pads””, and when I was fixing the fan noticed pee pads in the laundry room. I took a $200 non refundable cleaning fee and 1.5x security deposit so if it smells like pee when she moves out I figure I will just have it professionally cleaned and deduct anything over 200 from he security deposit. Any and all advice and suggestions are welcome! Thanks for your time reading and I look forward to hearing from you all!