I want to get rid of our dog but husband disagrees, am i stuck?

6 Comments

We have a 10 month old dog. He is a sweetheart and he has the most adorable wrinkled face. I have gotten him trained pretty ok. He is mostly housetrained and when I tell him to go lay down, after the third time he usually listens. He doesn't chew on our stuff if we pick it up off the floor and keep him in stock of chew toys. But I have an almost four year old that loves to fight with the dog. I have to constantly make sure she isn't jabbing him in the eye. He gets too rough when they play and knocks her down, which in turn she screams bloody murder every 5 minutes. I thought this was a phase but it isn't easing up. I am trying to go to college while taking care of my kid and running all of the errands and doing all of the housework. Now I have the dog on top of that. My husband said he would help with the dog when we got him and we thought it would be good for my daughter since she won't be getting a sibling anytime soon. But all they do is fight and when my husband gets home he is too tired to play with the dog. Every once in a while he will give it five minutes of play time but has only walked it once in the past six months. The dog slobbers on me every time I get near it. So if I manage to get a shower that day and put clean clothes on it doesn't last for more than a few minutes before I get gross again. We bathe the dog weekly but it stinks and the house stinks. The walls have drooly scum on them. He gets poop on its butt when it goes to the bathroom and then I find poop stains around the house. The vet told me to use wipes on his butt every time it uses the bathroom. (Really?! That is what I am suppose to do everyday?) It won't go to the bathroom unless you go out and watch it. We have a fenced in yard but it has dug holes and bent the fence to escape every time we put it outside by itself. I didn't realize the dog would be like an infant that needed this kind of constant attention when we got him. I love this dog so much but I want to have a sanitary house, I want my kid to stop screaming about the dog, I want to stop arguing with my husband about sharing the responsibility, and I want to be left alone and showered for a few minutes. My husband keeps saying, "well play with him more, we spent all this money on him, try this, he's just a dog, you agreed to getting him, I work so I don't have time to help more". I want to find the dog another home. My husband is obsessed with having a dog for some reason but I am the actual owner because I take care of it. My husband even says he has more empathy for animals and likes them more than people because they aren't bad like people. I think that is absurd. I care very much about animals as well but not over my family. And also I feel like the poor dog is being neglected because no one has time to play with it or even wants to. So what is the point in having him? And when we leave the house it is by itself in the bathroom all day. Will the dog adjust if we find him a nice place to live? I know they have feelings and get attached to people but I am not sure how similar to people dogs are emotionally. I'm starting to feel like having pets is just wrong, for everyone involved. I wish my husband would agree but he doesn't. What should I do? I'm worried my husband is going to hold it against me if I find the dog another home.

Should I suck it up? 13
Is he normal? 1
Will he hold this against me? 3
Should I rehome the dog? 19
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Comments ( 6 )
  • Tessla
    7 years ago

    My husband wants to be a dog, they are all idiots!

    Anyway, let me tell you from experience of 16 years of marriage..what you are doing now will set a tone/precedent/whatever you want to call it. If he resents you that is simply the type of person he is. If you resent him it will be because you chose to subordinate yourself...wel, really to a dog. He did not marry a dog, he married you. You have a child (that's when I got rid of our dog) and the child obviously must come first so if the dog is taking away from your ability to give the child all the energy it needs the dog must go.
    However, don't you take the dog anywhere. It's his dog. make him choose to take it somewhere or to make the situation one that works for you. What is the dog creating in the household. More work. You are doing that work right now. If you had no extra work out of the dog you would keep it, right? Well, easy solution for hubby. Get you help. He can hire you a housekeeper or an au pair.

    Can't afford it? Who can't afford it, you or him...who brings in the paycheck? If it's him then he needs to step up his game and start bringing in the money YOU need to have the lifestyle HE seems to think he is currently able to afford. If he wants the dog there are certain basic requirements to owning a dog - one of them is that you have the energy left to care for both him and the child.

    To lead up to this what you need to do is simply stop feeding, walking or cleaning up after the dog. You simply don't have the energy, and that's your 'excuse' if he so much as raises the subject that you are not caring for things. When the dog poops or vomits you take the child somewhere there is no poop or vomit and stay out until he has it cleaned up. This may cost money, joining a children's museum, going to get something to eat (or eating out if it's dinner time), etc gets expensive. So again, he has to step it up if he wants to live the 'dog lifestyle'. It's not even about you, it's all about the dog and he needs to understand that. The dog is the driver behind all this...you love the dog, it deserves better and it's his responsibility.

    Make it about the dog, because clearly the current situation is not one where he values you all that much.

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  • [Old Memory]
    7 years ago

    jesusfuckingchrist, i have no energy to read all that

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  • Tealights
    7 years ago

    Take the dog to a no-kill shelter to get adopted. It's 10 months, very young; it'll find a good home to grow up in.

    As for your husband, with all disrespect intended, he's full of shit. You go to college, you take care of the house and your daughter, and on top of that a dog; yet he's too tired to toss a ball around in the yard after work? Nope. I bet he's not too tired to have sex or something.

    Ugh, I hate that, "I work, so I can't do blah blah this or that," excuse. It's just laziness.

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    • Jess1010
      7 years ago

      Thanks for your reply, I really needed the support.

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  • Kiri298
    7 years ago

    Personally I say suck it up.

    A dog is a camily member and therecor is a lifetime commitment just like your daughter and husband. If he's giving you trouble find him a Trainer who can train him to stop doing those things you dont like. Your daughter getting knocked down? Well it's bound to happen with big dogs. We had a Lab when I was 4 I kept getting knocked aeound by it in its pee infact.

    And dogs slobber. The smallest of dogs still slobber. Big dogs slobber more as it also contains their mucous.

    As for your dog getting poop stuck if it has long hair, cut the hair away from it's behind I have to do this to my Papillom and Pomeranian, plus our samoyed.
    Or, make sure it doesn't eat hair (excluding its own). If it's eating your hair or ptger human hair or even fuzz that can get the poop stuck.

    And I hate to tell ypu, but a No Kill shelter may seem good at first but, they send the dogs out to kill shelters after being in the shelter for about 1-3 years.

    If you poan in rehoming him, post around facebook first, give him back to who you got him from even.

    Also, judging by your life style I think a Cat or a toy breed of dog would be better for you.

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  • tittle
    7 years ago

    Get rid of them all.

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