"Your" damned dog is eating me out of house and home - literally!

The BBQ Pit
1

(Or “No Good Deed Goes Unpunished.”)

So, beloved old friend and former roommate, you got a dog! Congratulations! Oh, wait: You work out of town four to five days per week, so that means I get to puppysit your Amazing Destruct-O-Matic! Well, okay, since you’re gonna be training him during your days off. Except that you don’t! I understand the importance of having a social life on your days off – that’s much more important than ensuring that the four-month-old, 45-pound German shepherd learns not to jump on, scratch, bite, and pin down the children who share this house! Nor should you sacrifice your expensive drinking and shopping habits to pay for food or vet care for the Amazing Destruct-O-Matic, since you have a roommate who won’t, in good conscience, let him go without! And hey! When the logical decision is made for Yours Truly to buy a smaller house for herself and the kids while you buy a place of your own in the city where you work, it’s okay to assume that I’ll keep the goddamned puppy while you put up a fence for him. And that I’ll buy his food, and give up the use of my own back yard to the Hyper Puppy from Hell. And just how long does it take to fence your 20x40 foot backyard? Well, so far, it’s seven weeks and counting… apparently because you spend your evenings and three-day weekends drinking and shopping (for something besides fence wire, obviously!) You have visited the dog exactly once, for two freaking hours, in the seven weeks since abandoning him! (And I can’t figure out why I still have your fish. He’s pretty big, too, but I don’t recall needing a fenced yard for goldfish?!)

Meanwhile, the Amazing Destruct-O-Matic has eaten a hole in my back door, pulled the insulation off the back of my refrigerator, chewed my waterhoses to shreds, chewed through several of the deck and stair banisters, and pulled a couple of feet of plumbing pipes out from under the house! He has bitten visitors to my home in his manic enthusiasm, and he’s now bigger than both of the kids, so I can’t safely bring him inside. I can only spend limited time with him outdoors, because he has hurt me repeatedly (sprained wrist while trying to control him, innumerable scratches - several infected, and a ruptured tendon in my forearm while trying to get him off the four-year-old. And I’m a photographer: If I can’t use both of my arms, I can’t work. If I can’t work, I can’t feed my kids, my dog, or your hellhound!) It’s not the damned dog’s fault, dear friend: This entire situation is YOUR FAULT. I love you quite a lot, but I can say one thing with no fear of being contradicted by reasonable people: You should not own a dog.

And getting back to that social life thing: Since moving, I’ve been forced to give up two weekend trips, since I can’t find anyone willing to puppysit your cur(sed) dog. I haven’t been able to use my back yard barbecue, I can’t put up the kids’ swingset or jungle gym, and the children can’t enjoy their own fenced, safe acre of back yard. (Instead, their outdoor play must be carefully supervised in the front yard, since the family business next door services semis and heavy equipment, and their is some amount of traffic to worry about.) I sleep at odd stretches, since the puppy (naturally) gets lonely and starts barking every couple of hours. Even my own 12-year-old (well-behaved) dog is limping around, since his poor old arthritic legs get chewed by the puppy.

I’d really, really hate to end a 20-year friendship over something so stupid, but, Dear Friend, if you don’t get your dog soon, there’s gonna be hell to pay!

2

I hate, hate, hate making this suggestion, but is there a local no-kill shelter near you? If so, tell the roommate that he has, what, a week? to get this sorted out or the puppy will be delivered there.

3

Sadly, I live in the back of beyond, and all the shelters within 50 miles are run by Animal Control agencies. They’re decidedly not no-kill facilities. (I researched just this solution, obviously!) I’ve even begun canvassing for someone who could provide a good home for a pure-bred shepherd in need of serious obedience training, but no luck: The only people who are willing to take the puppy are people I don’t trust to provide a good home, or people who truly can’t afford to provide heartworm preventative, vaccinations, and all the other stuff that dogs really must have. If this situation continues much longer, though, I’m going to start looking for a breed rescue organization…

4

Next time your “friend” is home, bring him his damned dog and leave it with him.

Stick a flyer for AA in his collar while you’re at it.

5

On second thought, don’t do that. The poor puppy doesn’t deserve to live with an asshole like your friend. Contact one of those breed rescue organizations right now. Giving this dog back to him is as good as putting him down yourself.

Try mailing the AA flyer, instead.

6

Time to contact rescue. Dunno where you are, but if you contact one of the larger breed rescue orgs, they should be able to put you in touch with local rescue. Try http://www.magsr.org/ to start and go from there.

7

I agree that your idiotImeanfriend shouldn’t own a dog, but I disagree on one major point - this situation is YOUR fault. Your “friend” is taking horrible advantage of you because YOU’RE LETTING HIM. Time to quit complaining and start doing something about it. If it means puppy goes to a shelter, so be it. And it doesn’t sound like you’d be losing much if you lost a “friend” who takes advantage of you like this.

8

And then I read your post and see you are starting to take action. The rest of my post stands, though. People only take as much advantage as you let them.

9

Time for puppy to go.

My ex-roomies dog ate the garden and all the potted plants (repeatedly), the couch, and a stack of library books. When I talked to roomie about it, she said “Well, I don’t know what you can expect me to do about it!” and then claimed it was human poop on her bed. They were both nuts.

She took my tv when she moved out, too.

I was going to drive the dog to the local animal shelter myself and I would have done it, too, if she hadn’t moved out so quickly.

10

Maybe I’ll surprise you by agreeing completely! :wink: I’d’ve never let this situation go so far had I not thought “My friendship of 20+ years is worth some inconvenience. I love my friend, we’ve supported one another through breakups, deaths in our families, long distances, lousy relationships, etc. How can I end a friendship over her stupid dog?” However, I’m reaching the end of my rope. She calls to gripe about her job (Hello! You work for my parents, who hired you after you got fired for a temper tantrum at your last job!), she gripes about her house (which I helped her finance,) she gripes about her car (which my parents financed for her,) and she gripes about her finances (see references to “drinking” and “shopping.”) I hope I’m not perceived as self-contradictory, though, by saying that she’s also a very good person – the sort who would give anything she owned to help someone in need. Dear Friend just doesn’t seem to possess any talent for looking ahead at the inevitable consequences of her actions.

I really think I’d be doing Dear Friend and the Hellhound a kindness by just finding a decent home for the dog.

11

You don’t need to break a friendship. You just had to give her back the puppy after a week (or even not taking it at the first place, since you already had so much troubles with it at the first place) and tell her to find a solution by herself. If she then deciced that not being able to take advantage of you anymore was sufficient cause for putting an end to this friendship, I woul logically deduce that this friendship was worth nothing at the first place.
Besides, given the long list of things you did for her, she’s taking advantage of you in a major way.

12

It sounds like she is the kind of person who can be a “friend with limits.” Some people can be friends through thick and thin and in any situation - she’s not one of them. With these kind of people, you set limits with them and don’t allow them to go past them, or it interferes with the friendship. For example, if someone I know is a good person, but habitually late, I don’t make plans with them that require them to show up on time.

13

Sounds like your friend doesn’t own a dog; you do.

14

Touche’!

15

Unfortunately nobody really owns this poor dog, in the sense of having time, will and real desire to make it part of a family/pack. RunAmok just offered to be a stop-gap out of friendship and good will.

Check out Elenfair’s link, RunAmok. You don’t have the time, resources or desire to socialize this poor pup. It’s lonely, confused and floundering. By NO means turn it back over to your deadbeat ‘friend’. He/she blithely tossed aside a long-standing human friendship, without the slightest concern. Chunks of granite are more responsive than your ‘friend’.

Primary responsibility? Find a safe holding place for the dog, until it can find a real home. Dopers will help. It’s the real innocent in this mess, followed only slightly by yourself and your family. FWIW, I’m not all that eager to blame those who get into messes, even through generous hearts and misplaced trust. It happens.

Your former beloved friend and roommate is currently a callous, irresponsbible jerk, RunAmok. It may just be a phase or something more lasting. Either way, handle the castoff kindly.

16

!) Just what kind of breed is this thing?!

17

Contrarily to some posters, I would advise against any plan that would involve giving the pet to any third party. It’s not your pet, and baring cruelty or such things you don’t have any right to decide that your friend shouldn’t keep it and to give away her dog.

That’s would definitely be a major breach of trust and friendship.

You might advise her to do so, in particular if you tell her that you won’t anymore take care of the dog, and she states that she really can’t keep it/ take care of it at the moment because fence not ready…blahblahblah…need a social life…blahblahblah… In this case, by all means, tell he that both her and her dog could be better off if she was willing to give it away, hand her adresses, etc… But once again, you shouldn’t take the matter in your own hands and decide all by yourself what should be done with the dog. In this case, she would have every right to be majorly pissed off. I certainly would be.
Once again, I’d advise to just tell her that, beginning say next week, you won’t take care of her dog anymore, period. Whether she then decide to actually fence her yard, find another willing provider or follow any advise you could give about finding a new home for it is up to her.

18

A young dog that destroys everything in view? If I had to guess, I would put y money on a labrador. But actyually, the OP mentionned it was a german shepherd.

19

I don’t agree. The ‘owner’ has seen this dog for a total of 2 hours in the last 7 weeks.
This is not how to treat a pet, nor how to bond with a dog.
The dog is clearly not happy (it’s bitten people, scratched people and damaged property).
The dog needs a decent home quickly, or it could become unmanageable.

We should all be ‘pissed off’ at the owner.

20

This sort of neglect is cruelty.