Hello all. I am contemplating moving to Taiwan to teach within the next 1-2 years and want to research as much as possible before I make a decision.
I am mostly concerned about bringing my dog with me. She is a German Shepherd, about 36kg. Would there be an issue with renting/Are there breed restrictions in Taiwan? In the US it is difficult to find a place to rent with a GSD. From what I have seen about breed restrictions it is just pit bulls. I am a little nervous as I don’t want anything happening to her, and I know that people can be scared of her breed. Maybe I am just paranoid, lol.
Also I am mainly looking for suggestions of where in Taiwan I should consider moving to. I want to be able to walk her, and bring her places off leash so she can run around. She also loves to hike with me. I am not very familiar with the cities or districts but would prefer something closer to nature if possible. Thank you :).
Many landlords also do not wish have a dog owning tenant in Taiwan either.
There is no stigma regarding GSD in Taiwan. There are some with pit bulls.
Every city has areas that have lots of room to walk the dogs. In Taipei City for example, some rivers have parks with long trails or even dog parks near the dikes.
If you want a place that has sidewalks that’s safe to walk around, then it will usually be in an area developed in the last 15 years and a bit more pricey.
If it’s a widespread phenomenon then it really sucks. Hopefully there aren’t that many landlords with that attitude. I imagine it would be less likely to happen in bigger cities.
I don’t think there is any particular fear of German Shepherds here, but there is a somewhat widespread fear of dogs in Taiwan, and my guess is that it will be worse with a large dog like yours. I have a medium-sized Formosan Mountain Dog and I would say a good 20% of people are scared of him. It’s a higher percentage than what you would encounter in the States. Just be prepared for that. You may want to leash him until you are in an area with a lot of open space and few people.
Maybe you could research places to rent before you come. There are or were quarantine restrictions in Taiwan for dogs coming from countries that have rabies.
If you come to Taipei or New Taipei area maybe you could live in an area with close access to the Riverside Park.
I’d look at Hualien or Taitung. You get a lot more living space for your buck, you can actually get a place with a garden unlike the big cities on the west coast, and you’re surrounded by nature. There are fewer teaching jobs but they do exist.
The annoying thing is that sometimes the information on these sites aren’t real. If might call in and realized the unit you like is already gone, or perhaps never available to begin with.
I don’t think I’ve seen a German shepherd in a stroller.
When I was renting in Zhubei, there were several disabled huskies in the area, and their owners would walk them with wheels supporting their disabled hind legs. They looked super happy and move crazy fast.
I didn’t know the law. That’s good to know. I’ll weigh my dog tonight! I live at the foot of a mountain and nobody leashes their dogs except for one guy and his mean-old dog. The guy is very nice and apologetic for his dog’s actions. There are at least two who ride their scooters with their dogs running behind even.
Anyway, what’s with the over 23 kg part of that law? In my experience, the bigger dogs are usually more gentle than the small dogs. And I guess this is pretty good evidence to the OP that even more will be scared here in Taiwan in view of the large size of his dog. The law makes that very clear.
It seems to me that you should do one of the public school teaching gigs in Taiwan either as a teacher or as a teaching assistant. They prefer to assign people to rural/remote areas that most people don’t want to go to. If you lived in the real country or, better yet, and indigenous area, there will be very little problem with a large dog.
In my personal opinion, it is not responsible to keep such a big dog in the city here. Apologies to responsible owners who manage to do so, but it seems really difficult.
While true, when they are decidedly not gentle, the damage could be a lot more extensive.
An internet celebrity, Hogler Chen, has a Caucasian shepherd dog that attacked people multiple times, many of them were Hogler’s own employees. I think the stat was 10 biting incidents in 5 years or something. Oh, and one time it bit his wife. He sent the dog to a trainer, and the dog bit the trainer. Some of them suffered broken bones from the biting.
I know plenty of Taiwanese dog or cat owners claim they feel bad for neutering or spading their pets. Yet they won’t let them breed either. That’s some weird take on cruelty.
I live in Xitun Dist in Taichung. Near the city hall/opera house area there are several large public parks where many people take their dogs. Also you can get to the mountains to take them hiking if you want pretty easily. My dog is a shepherd as well and nobody ever has had an issue with her, they’re mostly just curious about seeing such a large dog in a stroller, which is a requirement in my apartment building.
Are you trolling on the last sentence !
I don’t believe you are but WTF. GSD’s in strollers ! Why don’t they say just muzzle them in an elevator or something ?
Omg thank you for the replies and info everybody. I wasn’t expecting it to be so active
First off I’m sorry I should have been more clear, I do leash her and would not walk her around the city without a leash. When I said off leash I was meaning open spaces/fields or something like that, that I could bring her to so she could run around besides leash walks.
Yes something like that area looks great! It’s good to know that every city has places like this. I was expecting most of the cities to be congested all the time with no spaces like that. I was actually hesitant on looking into Taipei because of it, but it seems fine.
