Not for nothing, but every single person I have ever met who claims to have fibromyalgia also has mental health issues and is able to everything except work and activities they don’t want to do.
She was denied for short-term disability through her work, and I believe it’s because she had investigators watching her run around doing all these things. I’m definitely not saying she’s faking, or that fibro is not real. But I have worked for rheumatologists that don’t even think it’s real, so that possibly colors my opinion of it.
As for the dog, I think alice in wonderland may be correct. I am going to have to look at this as a trade-off. I train the dog, and therefore I have a new dog, and I get to live in this nice house in this nice neighborhood. I am going to become… [Spanish accent]the dog whisperer[/Spanish accent]… I’d rather be positive and happy than negative and unhappy, anyway.
On the upside, training the dog is probably faster than training the roommate.
It sounds like the boys are old enough to walk her on a leash, once they all get used to it. A good long walk every day would help her lot, I think.
I would take the dog to a no-kill shelter or breed rescue group and then tell the roommates that it got out and I couldn’t find it. My concern is actually for the dog’s quality of life and people who adopt dogs with no thought of training it to live with humans don’t deserve to have pets. You have to teach a dog how you want it to act. If you have no plans to make that kind of commitment, then it’s in the dog’s best interests to find another home where the people will care for it properly.
That and you have to think of living with an untrained beast who will jump on your guests, shred your stuff, poop and pee where it shouldn’t. Nobody wants to live like that, least of all the dog.
Sounds like the housemate is too flaky to be reasoned with or dealt with in a mature adult manner, so I’d go with sneaky passive aggression.
I absolutely agree with you that she has no business having a dog. This isn’t even her only dog- she also has a little asshole shih-tzu that growls all the time, even when you’re in the middle of petting him. She can’t housetrain the little fucker, of course, so the thing wears a diaper.:rolleyes:
However, the problem with taking the dog in the OP somewhere and telling her that it got out and is gone, is that since I don’t know the roomie that well yet, she is unpredictable to me. I don’t know what she would do if she viewed the dog being gone as my fault- freak out, kick us out, who knows? In my dealings with crazy or possibly crazy people, I tend to want to stay on their good side. I do have to sleep sometime.
I’m going to start doing this today, after I go to the store to get treats.
Well, then, go with the “hijack the dog” plan and take her with you when you move out because you never really actually managed to get on the lease, and so of course you are not obligated, and you next place will take dogs and not have a batshit crazy roommate. And your kid will bond with the dog, learn how to train dogs with you, and have a really great relationship with the dog.
Or something. Congratulations on your new dog!
ETA: If you do the liver treat thing, that dog will be totally bonded to you. Regardless of what your roommate says, to the dog, you will be its alpha.
Train the dog to hate her.
or to shoot bees at her when she barks.
Feel for you 
My ex-housemate had 3 dogs, two when I moved in which were… ok… both had a few issues, but they were both housetrained and barring barking quite a lot they kept themselves to themselves.
Then she got another one. She did actually ask me if it was OK- I said no. It’s not. I suppose she listened, as it turned out not to be a dog but a hellfiend in dog form. She actively opposed anyone training it because it would ‘make it act unnaturally’. It bit, both in play and when you tried to stop it doing anything, and it was a BIG dog. It crapped and peed everwhere (inside a duvet cover on someone else’s bed being the most impressive), and after a few weeks the other dogs started copying it, it also ran away if you opened the door without making sure it was shut in. It couldn’t get in my room, but chewed stuff up anywhere else it could.
She got bored of it after a month or so, and just stopped walking it, and also took to occasionally going away for a few days without telling anyone else that she wasn’t coming back that night. I basically told her I would keep the dogs’ water bowl topped up if I noticed it was empty, I would let them out into the back yard when I was home, but I was not feeding them, I was not walking them, they were not my dogs. My other two housemates wound up looking after all three dogs (and one of them had her own little dog as well).
I moved as soon as I could. So did both other housemates. I did wonder if I should call the RSPCA, but I never did it. She actually used to work at a dog rescue place, which is where the original dogs came from, it still boggles my mind that she was so ludicrously bad with them.
Alice, I don’t have any advice on the dog issue, but I’m still kind of cringing over the fact that you moved into a house with people you barely know, with no lease. This sounds to me like a recipie for disaster. If her name is the only one on the lease, you have no rights here. She might even be violating her own lease by renting to you, which could explain why she’s dragging her feet on putting anything in writing.
I totally agree that moving sucks, and I get the appeal of living in the best home and nicest neighborhood you can afford, but honestly, it really sounds as if you and your son might be better off on your own in a less-nice place.
My gut tells me to advise you to find an apartment and undo this mistake. Without a lease you can walk away from this situation without consequences. But if you’re hell-bent on staying, for crying out loud, get an agreement in writing, and do it yesterday. Don’t wait for your nutty rommate to “get around to it.”
So JoeyP was completely correct in his assessment?
What you don’t realize is that if you train that dog, it’ll be your roommate that’s training you. All you’re doing is showing her that your demands and requests have no teeth and that there won’t be any consequences for her pulling this kind of shit. And I promise you there will be plenty more of this kind of shit if you continue to live with her.
I think it’s lovely that neither you, Alice The Goon, or the dog have to be re-homed.
I’m impressed by your wise and kind decision and hope your cats are too.
Yeah, pretty much. I just realized, when the dog got out yesterday and I was able to catch her without all the chasing and the drama, that it didn’t *have *to be like that, and that I could take a different approach to the situation. Instead of being mad and miserable, hey maybe I can train the dog myself, and that makes all of us happy, and none of us moving out. It might not be the direction everybody would go in, but I’m okay with it. When I was saying I would not train the dog, I really was thinking the dog was wild and crazy and that it would be very hard- now I’m not so sure. And, no, if you knew me, you’d know that I actually don’t put up with any shit from the people in my life, so I’m not worried about that.
And yes, we are meeting with the landlord this weekend, and we’ll be on the lease, and everything will be legally kosher.
And thanks, 6impossiblethings!
You’re most welcome, AtG! I think it’s heartwarming that you came to the realisation that the dog doesn’t deserve to be punished for having a dickly, (possibly sickly) owner.
Keep in mind that often the happiest canine and human bonds are a result of the dog picking you…
More power to ya, I say…!
In my dog’s obedience classes, we learned that you never chase a dog (chasing is a fun game! for the dog…) and when you want a dog to return to you, you make yourself the most exciting thing around. Stay in one place, lie on the ground, make big exciting noises, flail your arms, mention treats and doggie will decide that whatever the hell you are doing is much more exciting than running down the street.
With my dog, all I had to do was figure out that her most favoritest thing ever is to go for a R.I.D.E. and whenever she starts running away, I indicate that we’re going on a R.I.D.E. and she’s back.
Good luck, Alice. Look for old threads about dog training - Dopers are a wealth of training knowledge!
This also works for my 3-year-old.
If you’re renting a joint, I think it’s irresponsible to have pets. Folks like this don’t sound like responsible dog owners. First and main concern is for the 12 y.o. lad…is the dog any risk to him? How does this woman expect to contain the dog?
No, she’s not a responsible dog owner. But I don’t think renting has anything to do with it. If we all had to wait to buy a home to have a pet, my god, there’d be a lot of lonely people in the world.
As for my 12 year-old, the dog isn’t really a biter, and he knows not to run out into the street after her (unlike her 9 year-old, but then I’m not responsible for him so I really don’t care).
I’m not sure how she expects to contain or do anything with the dog- that’s the whole point of this thread.
When I was little and our dog would get out (she wasn’t trained at all and would run out the door if you let her. Sadly, it took her getting hit by a car- don’t worry, she was taken to the vet and she was fine- to learn not to run out. Well, she’d still run out, but after that she’d stop at the end of the lawn and just look down the road) the way we’d coax it back inside would be to go out, make sure she could see us, and then ourselves run back into the house. I guess she figured it was a game because if she saw you running she’d come bouncing after you, only to zoom away again if you gave any sign of turning back at her.
I guess she had us pretty well trained.