On average, a dog or cat probably causes so little damage to the apartment that the landlord will not do anything beyond maybe throw a fresh coat of paint on the walls. I'm sure there are exceptions which trash apartments, but OTOH... so do human beings.

You know what behavior HASN'T been exceptional in my experience? Landlords playing stupid games with my deposit, trying to hold me accountable for nonexistent or preexisting damage, or just generically being irritating.

Let landlords ban pets other than registered service animals if they want to (none of this ESA nonsense), make sure the eviction process is timely and fair, and otherwise crack the hell down on the games they play with their tenants.

Landlording is so morally fraught that Adam Smith called it out in the Wealth of Nations as an example of unproductive rent-seeking. "Populist slop" is absolutely called for - there is almost no other industry of that size where so many unearned benefits accrue to the already-wealthy.