You might want to look in Erie, CO. There is no “there” there but is 15 miles to downtown Boulder and 25 to downtown Denver. You can still find a nice place for around $300K with plenty of room for your big dogs. Very safe, and there are older parts of town that will be even cheaper. You can also find some acreage on the northern edge of town.
The biggest drawback is that there is little to do there and it is surrounded by much cooler places.
Morrison was nice when I went to see a concert at Red Rocks, so there’s that.
What do folks think of the Green Valley Ranch area?
I don’t know what folks think. I think it’s too far from everything (except the airport), too new, and too full of two-car garages with attached cheapo houses. Also, being new, not a lot of trees. (Say 25-30 years, there is still room for lots of buildout.) But I’m not the one thinking of moving there.
Drier, sunnier and with manageable durations of cold and snow. I don’t mind one “bad” weather season as long as it’s not too extreme. The months of cloudiness and rain in the PNW are too much like the last six years, albeit with lower humidity overall and reportedly nice (but short) summers. I’ll take 300 sunny days with a trend colder.
Oh, I’d love to live in a craftsman house in the coolest old part of a hip city… but a comfortable place out in the cheaper burbs works fine for me, too. It doesn’t look like anything much is too far of a drive, at least, not disproportionate to frequency of need.
All in all, I may drive (or Uber) to the airport more than to many points Denverites gush about. 
I moved to Denver from the Chicago burbs in 2002. We came here due to a job transfer but were thrilled that this was our destination.
The weather is fantastic coming from where we did. Denver has as many hour of sunlight per year as San Diego does, although they have us beat on temperatures. It is a rare day that we don’t see the sun come out for at least a few hours each day. I have come to miss rainy days, we have so few. Snow tends to be efficient here. It may dump 10 inches in one day, but 48 hours later it is nothing but a memory. Same with cold temps. It may be 20 degrees one day and 80 degrees a few days later. We saw that just last week. Oh, and…drum roll…there is vritually no humidity!.
Employment is close to full right now. As others have said, you can work if you want to. We have all the major sports teams, as well as many of the minor ones, if that is of importance to you. Cultural opportunities are many, varied, and of higher quality than I expected. If you and your pups are outdoorsy, opportunities both within the city and outside of it are limitless.
Speaking of pups, Denver is incredibly dog friendly. It is the only city I know that has such a high demand for adoptable pets that animals are sent here from shelters all over the country to find homes. As a result, many concerns have amenities for canines. Restaurants often have canine-friendly patios, for example. There are lots of dog parks, many vets, dog day cares, etc. I myself have two large dogs (setters), and have found dog ownership here to be incredibly easy. My current residence has a very nice dog park and a dog sitting service as part of its community amenities.
Traffic is a problem. Although there is plenty of construction being done on the infrastructure, the rapid population growth in the area is outstripping the capability to keep up with infrastructure needs.
Housing is not for the hesitant or faint of heart. If you see anything you like, you have to pounce immediately…and probably pay the asking price or even a premium. We are expecting it to cool down, but are not sure when that will occur, as the hot market has already outlasted predictions. Right now, the best bargains to be found are in the northern burbs like Thornton or Broomfield. But those do involve a lengthy commute if you get work in the downtown area.
A big minus for me personally is the lack of a big body of water. I grew up on the shores of Lake Michigan, so I likely make more of that lack than the average transplant would. You can boat here, but mostly in reservoirs and other man made bodies of water.
Finally, it is a great place for the directionally-disabled. The mountains are always to the west. 
My son has lived S of Denver for the past couple of years. Loves it. Je complains that housing is pricey - but that all depends on what you are looking for and what you compare it to.
Denver impresses me as a great city. Tough to beat if you like mountain recreation. Lots of neat stuff going on downtown - from art museums to pro sports teams.
The one thing I’ll echo is to try to narrow in on where you are going to be working/playing. You sure don’t want to be commuting up and down 25 every day. I suspect that stretch of road is as bad as any urban highway, and there are limited alternatives.
I lived in Golden (one of Denver’s suburbs) from 2001 to 2006 and then moved back in 2012 until last year. For a place that has winter, Denver is about as good as it gets you’ll get all four seasons, sometimes in the same day, but they crappy ones don’t last long, never more than two weeks.
The employment scene in nuts all along the front range so finding a job will be fairly easy. One thing to think about with work and living is where they are relative to each other. I commuted from Golden to Downtown for 2 years and it was pretty easy never more than 45 min even in the worst weather and about 20 including parking on the good days. Commuting up and down I-25 sucks and there is no good direction or time of day. If you’re planning on working in the tech center or downtown I would plan on living close and avoiding the freeways with the exception of going down 6th ave or I-70. There is also a ton of work going on in the Boulder area and you really don’t want to have to commute on 36 unless you’re going to the right way I’ve seen a 30 min backup to get on the highway southbound from Boulder at the end of the day. One other thing to note is that SouthEast Denver, basically Aurora, has terrible freeways with only one loop tollway so getting into the rest of town can be a giant pain especially if you’re going from say the Aurora reservoir to Downtown to catch a baseball game or work.
One thing to note on weather is that the mountains act as a bit of a weather break so the further you get from them the weirder it can get. Obviously far enough east and you’re in tornado country and that certainly includes large chunks of Aurora. You’ll also get more hail out there and typically more snow too. Generally, all of the weather is worse east of I-25 year round.
My suggestions would be to look on the west side of I-25 and particularly the northwest since its easy to commute to the rest of the metro area from there. I like Golden but if I had the money I’d look more in the Boulder area. Arvada and Wheat Ridge are also nice if you’re looking to spend less money.
Thanks. It doesn’t look like housing costs go quite as low on the west side as over on the east - not too many decent houses at $300k and down. Some in Arvada. All the kind of useful, on-the-ground info I’m looking for, though!
Last time I talked to my son, he said there was incredible amount of construction to the east of town. Nearer the airport, but further from the mountains. Pretty close to desert.
You guys better stop talking up Colorado unless you want about 10M Californians moving there in the next few years. 
As a sometime visitor, rather than a resident, I’ll raise a point that local posters might overlook: altitude. It’s called the Mile-High City for a reason. I don’t know the altitude of your current residence, but if it’s not also pretty high above sea level, the thinner (and maybe drier) air than you’re used to is likely to take some adjustment. It’s not bad, but it’s something to keep in mind, especially if you’re planning on lugging boxes into a new home.
California has legal weed now, too, so that’s like half the reason people have been moving to Colorado. Most Californian’s I know can’t tolerate even the little bit of snow Denver gets. God knows, every winter I spent there I was California Dreaming.
ETA: Ya, the west side is more expensive generally there are reasons for that. Lakewood is on the cheaper end of the westside although you need to pay a bit of attention to what neighborhood you’re in there, unlike the one’s farther North.
Nit pick: We don’t have legal weed until next year-- the law doesn’t take effect until 2018.
I’m a coastal guy, and can’t imagine living away from the coast. But if I had to, Colorado would be at the top of the list. Never lived there, but visited several times, and it’s got a lot going for it. Quite a few of my friends (from CA) went to school in Boulder and they absolutely loved it.
When I was there my bar tabs were cheaper due to the altitude. You catch a buzz much faster.
I was never there long enough at a time to adjust, and being pretty active, so I was usually taking altitude sickness meds. That meant I was avoiding alcohol or anything carbonated, so no buzz for me. I’ve heard it has that effect, though.
I was only there for a week so I never adjusted. It was nice getting drunk off three beers, ha.