Yeah, Alice, GTFO immediately. Good luck finding a new place w/ your son. Keep us posted.
I moved over New Year’s weekend myself, and I get to do it again in six months. You have my sympathy and empathy. And, frankly, I still hope it doesn’t come down to that for you. It’s just that nothing you’ve said has left me with the impression that this woman is going to have an epiphany and get her act together in time for your sanity.
Still, give the ultimatum a try and see what happens.
Is her son roughly your son’s age or older? Is training the dog something the boys could attempt? When I was about 12 I had a lot of fun learning to train my dog to sit, stay, fetch, etc. Maybe the dog training could be a project for the boys instead of relying on crazy housemate mom.
That strikes me as being a suggestion in a really good spirit. The problem, I think, is that if her son takes on that responsibility, then she becomes, by proxy, responsible for the dog. And that’s the one thing I think she needs (and wants, I think) to avoid at all costs. The dog has already been made her problem against her will. Agreeing to be part of the training (even through her son) is like saying that it’s OK for the roomy to force these things on her.
How isolated are the two sides of the house? For example, you mentioned that there is a gate to keep the dog on their side, but then mention the dog is chewing everything. Is the dog just chewing up their stuff?
Some suggestions…Perhaps you could put up a curtain over the doorway so at night the dog can’t see you and therefore won’t bark and cry.
When they are gone maybe they could keep it locked in their bedroom so you don’t have to keep an eye on it.
Do you have to interact with this dog at all? Is it possible to keep the house separated enough that you can get in and out without having to come in contact with the dog (or more importantly risk losing)?
I’m just thinking that if you can’t get her to train the dog, maybe you can get her to keep it contained to one part of the house so at the very least it’s not your problem. Is that a possibility?
Are the two of you renting from someone? Is there a landlord involved?
Her son is 9, and is only here from Monday after school to Friday before school. Plus they both have after-school activities and homework that keep them pretty busy until dinnertime and then shortly thereafter it’s bedtime. Good idea, but I don’t know that either of them have the time and/or aptitude to take on such a project.
I’m really, at this point, considering training the fucking thing myself- as bad as it sounds, it’s got to be better than moving again so soon. How hard could it be, right?
I’m curious to hear more about the accident, as I could see that being an issue as well. Assuming this is a car accident, and assuming the owner went after your roommate for it, I presume she is now on the hook for possibly several thousand dollars. My guess is, she doesn’t have that, which may suddenly have all kinds of other “can you pay my half of the rent this month, and I’ll totally pay you back at some point in the future (but never will)” implications.
And should you or your son be the unfortunate ones to let the dog escape next time, are you on the hook for the damage the dog causes? On the one hand, I’d assume so because you were responsible for letting the dog out, but on the other, the fact she refuses to train the dog at least partially results in whatever damages are caused. You might want to discuss that as part of your “train your dog, or else” discussion. Even in a perfect world where your roommate does finally watch your DVDs and takes an active role in training the dog, you have to expect that training to take a while. In the intervening months, I think you can expect the dog to get out, possibly due to you or your son, and I’d like to know exactly what happens if the dog causes another accident, attacks a dog or person causing vet/human medical bills, and/or gets injured itself causing additional huge vet bills. And what discussion have you had regarding if/when the dog destroys your furniture, your clothes, your food, etc. in a common area?
NO! ::Smacks Alice with newspaper:: No, we don’t do that.
We do share the kitchen, dining room, (both of which are on her side) and backyard, so it’s not possible to entirely isolate ourselves or all of our things. The dog also has a problem with peeing and shitting on the floor, so I don’t want to lock it up in one room- it does have a crate, but that doesn’t eliminate the barking and whining. There is a landlord (hell, yes, I’d never move into someone else’s house that they owned) but I’m not really involved with him and don’t really want to be.
OTOH, if she’d be willing to pay you, it’d be different. For the class and your time.
Is this a puppy?
It’s about a year old.
Ah, yes, good points. I don’t see myself as responsible for the dog getting out- I see her as responsible for training the dog how to act if it does get out. However, she seems to think the opposite- that’s it’s on whoever “let” the dog get out. As for the accident, it was a rear-ending, which I see as being a result of following too closely. If you can’t stop in an emergency without getting rear-ended, then the person behind you was too close. I believe that’s how the law sees it as well. My roommate did not stop to talk to the people involved- after the dog was caught, she just went on home with it.
And I had this whole big ‘it’s a puppy, wait it out’ post written. Nevermind.
I’ve had a decent amount of experience training dogs using different methods. Dogs’ attention spans are even shorter than a 12 year old boy’s, so it’s usually actually a pretty convenient little project. You only need to spend about 10-15min. at a time training if you know what you’re doing.
I totally get your situation. You just moved in to this place and, like you said, moving out is a last resort. But the fact is, the owner will not train the dog or else will be very ineffective. She will also most likely not get rid of the dog. Therefore, you either need to issue the ultimatum (which may be uncomfortable) or find another way to train this dog, be it yourself or the kids. Or, just deal with it.
If you train the dog, it will effectively become your dog, since you will be its pack leader as far as it is concerned. Maybe not what you or your roommate want.
If it were me, I would move.
I went through this with a roommate. Her two dogs were completely untrained, and the border collie(BC) was a nipper. She could not be reasoned with. Or rather, she would agree with everything verbally, then fail to act.
The last straw was when the border collie attacked another dog, a toy poodle belonging to a dear mutual friend.(DMF) I stopped the fight, at great personal risk, while she stood there in a daze looking on. Then she took the BC back in the house, and stood there with the door cracked open talking to me and DMF. BC slipped through her legs and attacked the toy AGAIN, and again she stood there in a daze and did nothing while I saved the little dogs life. This time, I had the added fun of protecting BC as she came at her with a walking stick threatening to “beat the life out of her.”
Out of sheer desperation I had achieved a certain level of training with her dogs, (i.e. they only peed/pooped in the hosue when she was home) but she never reliably followed the simple guidelines I gave her for maintaining their training.
About four months after I moved out I went back to visit for the afternoon. The mutt had compeltely chewed up her sofa. I mean compeltely. The entire arm of it was down to the plywood, and the cushions had been compeltely gutted.
People like this do not apply responsible consistent action to anything in their lives. This defect will apply to many situations, from paying bills on time to keeping the kitchen clean. They will do things in dramatic binges, then expect to be free of that (or any) chore for days or weeks while they recover from the greatness of their effort. They seem to require a level of panic to get them moving and this results in a constant stream of drama for those around them.
Rest, recover, observe. My prediction is that you will find you don’t want your child in this environment.
I dearly hope I will turn out to be wrong about this.
“It’s YOUR dog that you REFUSE to train, that you got with out asking my permission. I do my damnedest every time I come in or out of this house, but if it slips past me, I’m not going to be responsible for any damage it causes.”
Is your house set up in such a way that you could set up either a baby gate or a gate such as this around the door? The linked one works nicely. I’ve used it in the past at my house. It comes apart so you can make it into any shape you want and anchor it to the walls (or just have it balancing) around the door. You and yours just step over, the dog stays on the other side. At least then your not fighting to get in and out and you can get your shoes on and off without the dog jumping all over you.
I mean, completely missed the edit window. :smack:
Can’t you call the pound and report her for neglecting the animal? If she won’t take the time to housetrain it and won’t take the time/steps to make sure he doesn’t get out, she’s harming the dog. The pound will not be happy.