As some of you may know, I'm looking into buying a house soon (preferably by January 2019 because that's when I have to renew my lease by).

I want to buy a pet (a dog in specific) for emotional support while I'm at it. I'm not buying a house JUST to get a dog. I'm buying it for other reasons.

My apartment complex currently does not allow dogs. I know that I can get a "prescription" from my pdoc/therapist for an emotional support animal and that legally the apartment complex has to abide by my request to allow me to have an emotional support animal, but the apartment is 900 sq feet and I feel it's kinda small for a big dog (I want a golden), so I don't want to do it. It wouldn't be fair to the dog unless I got a tiny one.

My mini psychosis episodes have been progressively getting worse and worse, too. The hallucinations and paranoid delusions are becoming more common as well. However, everything is very mild in nature. I just want a dog to help comfort me and help me work through these mini episodes, as these episodes do not always coincide with mania.

Considering the dog, do you think it's a better idea to get a house or keep my apartment? My apartment rent is $1600/mo excluding utilities (but I live in a very expensive area of the country, so $1600 isn't as much as you'd think), but a montage could possibly be cheaper despite paying utilities there too (as well as tax etc), and I have the money to for a downpayment for a house. I just would have to pay like $350k for a "cheap" house far away from work. (The average house seems to be around $600-750k, btw.) Paying gas to drive a further distance to work wouldn't be a problem since I get about 65 mpg with my Prius, and the location of my work isn't in a busy area (it's kind of secluded), so traffic might not be a huge pain in the butt.