We were having trouble finding a place for our two dogs so offered a "dog bond" which was $500 on top of our normal bond in case the dogs did any damage to the property. Once we did that, we were approved straight away at a house that originally stated no pets. Obviously we still looked after the place and when we left there were no problems and we got the whole bond back.
I think this concept is relatively new to Victoria (I may be wrong) - lots of my interstate friends told me about the 'dog bond' and no RE or landlord I've ever come across seem to know wtf I was talking about!