I walk the dog for an elderly shut-in and good friend of the family.
This morning, she died.
Here’s the thing…me and this dog love each other, but my house really isnt set up for housing a dog.
What do I do?
I’m sorry for your loss.
What do you do?
Make a decision.
If you truely wish to keep this dog, then make your house “dog proof”. If you don’t, then help the family find a good home for the dog.
And a side note to all pet owners, please make a plan for your beloved pets should you suddenly die or not be able to care for them. Many pets are sent to the shelter every year because of the lack of foresight of their owners.
Set your house up for a dog. 
You don’t have to do the whole thing all at once–just pick up a couple portable gates from a pet store (they’re not that expensive) to block off the hallways, and keep it in one area for a while…
How sad for everyone involved.
Out of all the hard luck dog stories out there, the ones where the Faithful Dog loses it’s Loving Master because of death just ping my cold, cold heart strings.
Talk to this persons family and ask them what they want to do. Technically, they get first dibs. However, they probably would be more than happy to see the dog go to a good and loving home. Animals are always lost in the shuffle.
This poor dog has just lost a parent. It’s going to be confused for awhile. Not to shovel guilt at you, but you are the rock for this little dog right now.
Dog ownership ( or human ownership as it were) really isn’t that hard. You let them into your life and they just tell you their needs through telepathic brainwaves. Or farts.
If you know that you cannot handle the time committment to a pet, there are rescue’s that can help you out. You can also do petfinder.com or other on-line classifieds to try to find a forever home.
What kind of dog is it? How old?
Well, if you love the dog and want to keep it, you make whatever changes you have to to make your home and life dog-friendly.
If you don’t want to keep the dog, you find out if there are relatives of the deceased who want her. If that doesn’t pan out, you start looking for somone else who would want the dog.
By “not set up for a dog” do you mean it’s too small, or somehow completely unable to house a dog, or are there things you could do to make it be dog-friendly?
If it’s the latter, then I agree with the previous posters - there are many simple things you can do to set up your house for a dog. You may need gates, which aren’t expensive. One of our dogs could open cupboard doors and drawers, so we had baby locks on them (which he later learned to open, also 
Assuming the dog is already housetrained and fairly obedient, that part should be easy. If you keep it, you might expect some accidents in the house simply because of the move and because the dog will be confused for a while.
Find out what kind of food he’s been eating, and keep feeding that. If you want to switch, buy a new brand while there’s still some of the old left, and gradually mix in the new one more and more each day until it’s all the new food.
If it’s the former, and you absolutely can’t keep it idefinitely, can you at least keep it until a new owner is found? Keep in mind that if it’s an older dog, new owners will be more difficult to find.
Good luck to both you and the dog!
Jesus, me too. I recently read Clara, the Early Years, and found out later that the woman who wrote the book died of cancer a few years later. I just about lost it - what did Clara do? How could she live without her Momma?
I see this as more proof that I’ve become an idiot dog person, the kind I used to make fun of ten years ago.
Back to the OP - do you rent? Can you maybe find a dog-friendly place to live? It seems to me that if you want this poor doggy, you should be able to find a way to set it up so it’s possible.
All white siberian husky.
Claws will be rough on our hard wood floors.
No enclosed porch or fenced in yard.
Keep them trimmed and they’ll be fine. We had a Norwegian Elkhound and they have those claws like huskies, and he didn’t harm the floors too badly.
If you have enough yard space, install a run. Basically, it’s a long cord running from one end of the yard to the other, with a long leash-type cord attached to it, so the dog is contained, but still has the run of the yard. (This is assuming you haven’t seen one, I’m not sure how common they are)
This is also assuming you really want to keep the dog and have the space, as well. If you don’t, then contact your local shelter and find out what they can offer you and the dog, or you can hold onto the dog for now and try to find a new owner on your own.
Take the dog!
We also recently adopted a dog (a Black Lab mix from the Humane Society). We also have all hardwood floors, no fences around our yard, and no enclosed porch. Just trim the dog’s nails (and keep rough play on area rugs or in the kitchen) and you’ll be fine.
As for the lack of fencing, establish a walking schedule with the dog. Ours gets a half-hour/45 minute walk before work, a ten-minute walk from our neighbor girl when she gets home from school, an hour walk after work, and a quickie walk to pee just before bed. She’s healthy and fit, and we take her to the dog park or the river on weekends.
If your neighbors or near-by relatives have kids, hire one of them to walk to dog once a day. We pay our little neighbor $2 a day, and it’s been great.
You can also put the dog on a long leash in the yard, with the leash tied to a zip line or a stake in the ground.
As mentioned claws should not be a problem. I have a German Shepherd and she lives in a home with all hardwood floors and the floors are fine. Keep the claws trimmed and there should be no problems unless you insist on perfectly pristine floors. (Funny thing to watch my dog sit as her front paws slowly slide out from under her and she has to keep readjusting to remain upright…she doesn’t seem to mind or even notice…if I am standing there I’ll put my foot in front of her paw(s) so they don’t slide very far).
As for the backyard you can attach a line as suggested or put in one of those corkscrew things into the yard to anchor a leash. If the dog is well behaved you may need none of this as (s)he won’t run away (although at first I would keep the dog on a leash till it identified your home as its home). The dogs I grew up with (also German Shepherds) never had an enclosed yard of any sort and they never, ever ran away and they had ample opportunity to do so had they wished. They even knew where our property lines were. If they saw something they wanted to chase they’d run to the edge of the property and stop of their own accord. That said every dog is different and different breeds can even be more or less likely to ‘roam’ if they can. Shepherds are by deisgn the “protector of the herd” and tend want to hang in their territory rather than roam. Males may be more likely to cruise the neighborhood and especially males that have not been neutered. Bottom line is you have to judge the dog for yourself but know it is quite possible to keep an unleashed dog outside.
I should add the caveat that I’d never leave an unleashed dog outside unattended if there is no fence to keep the dog in. Too many things that could go wrong even for a good dog (chases something off the property, threatens a neighborhhod kid who is taking a shortcut through your backyard, etc.).
There were a few instances where our dogs got out of the enclosed run we kept for them (we never figured out how they managed to escape but they always did…regular doggie Houdini’s). We’d come home hours later and the dog would be curled up on the front step. They clearly hated being cooped up inthe run (we thought we were doing them a favor leaving them outside for a few hours while we ran errands) and they were so good at getting out no matter what we tried that we just gave up on the whole thing. Point is thought they were excellent dogs, could have run away then and there no problem or gotten into other trouble but never did anything ‘bad’. They just got out and slept on the front porch. Not all dogs would do that of course but clearly some will.
Hope it all works out for you and the dog! Dogs can be a bit of work but are well worth the effort.
Aw, I love huskies. They’re all crazy, but I love 'em.
At any rate, those aren’t such big obstacles if you truly want this dog. We’ve got a shepherd and a lab mix, and near as I can tell they’ve never damaged our wood floors at all. Granted, you’re not going to keep a museum-quality shine on your floors with a dog running around, but she’s not going to be gouging things up. You’ll have to sweep more often to keep up with the dog hair, and maybe mop a bit more often, but that’s really about it. And to be honest, I find hardwood much simpler with animals, because the broom is more accessible and easier to use than the vacuum.
All it means to not have a fenced yard is that you can’t toss the dog outside by herself to get her exercise. You’ll have to step up her walks, or stay outside and play with her, or take her to the park to run and play. Or if you’ve got a long space inside where she can run, play with her there. Our house has a central hallway that runs the length of the house, and Dolly and I play fetch up and down it all the time.
Yes, you’d have to make some adjustments if you took this dog, but that would be the case no matter what kind of house you had. Adding to your household gives you all sorts of new responsibilities and changes your family dynamic. It just does.
Take the dog in. You love the dog and the dog loves you.
Remember that if you find that it isn’t working for you, you can move on to other options at any time.
Just a small note - my uncle and family had a clothesline type thing in the backyard that they would clip their dog so it could run out in the yard but not run away. It seemed to work nicely. However…if you keep the dog and decide to put up something like that PLEASE make sure you measure the proper length for the line and leash so the dog can’t run into anything that might hurt it. My uncle’s puppy ran up their porch and fell off the side thus strangling itself. It was unbelievably sad for the whole family and could have been avoided by measuring.
Take the dog. I’ve taken in dogs, cats, chickens, hamsters, rabbits, all sorts of critters and never regretted any of it. One dog should be easy. The dog gets a home, and you get a friend.
The dog…Quinn…is in the house and is behaving himself nicely.
Made a makeshift gate for the small back porch, but am going to purchase materials for buildinggates for the much larger front deck area.
Things are working out good so far.
I’ve been following this thread and I’m so very glad to hear that you’ve taken in the dog, Enola. Many good karma points go out to you. Many blessings and good wishes. This is great news. I wish you, your family, and the dog many happy days together.
i’m so glad you brought quinn home. i’m sure he is a perfect gentleman. i hope y’all have many happy years together.
Or if the dog is to be outside all or part of the time without supervision don’t use a clothes line type, but wrap their chain around a nice sturdy tree at ground level. When my late dog was eight months old, my parents bought her one of those clothes line type runs. The part that attached to her was a braided steel cable encased in plastic, and the package said it would hold up against a 200 lb dog. This may or may not have been true, were the only problem tugging. The cable did NOT hold up against sharp puppy teeth. Two days after we got it, she chewed her way free and was hit by a car. Fortunately she survived, but her pelvis was broken in five places so it took several months for her to recover.
Over the next 14 years she never had any problems with a ground-level chain that couldn’t be solved by unwrapping the chain from around the tree when she walked in a circle the wrong way too many times. Chains don’t look as pretty, but even a light-weight one that is easy on the dog’s neck and back is much safer so far as I’ve seen; dogs don’t chew threw chain-link. Use common sense about staking out a safe area for the dog, and it should be safe.