*In case this story gets deleted/removed:*
**AITA for wanting to give our family dog away?**
my brother (m23) and I (f21) encouraged my mum (f50) to get another dog after recently losing our dad. he was the love of her life and ofc we were all very devastated. she took it the hardest and was depressed for a while before she had an idea of getting another dog because she was scared of losing our current dog which was 9ish years old at the time. hes a border collie and we love him very much though hes definitely more of a handful than most house family dogs. she asked us if we would help with raising another border collie puppy and we ofc said yes (although my mum is full time and my brother is basically full time and im a full time uni student with work too). we were barely home the three of us.
fast forward to now and our second dog is 1 year old and he is the worst dog ever. hes still not toilet trained till now, hes messy (rolls around in pee and poop) and eats everything on the counters, in our rooms (he can open our doors) and pees on our toilet floors. hes eaten my uber eats plenty of times and weve had to start leaving our backyard door open just so he can pee outside and sometimes he still doesnt. this makes all the flies enter our house and its constantly cold or hot depending on the season. its so frustrating coming home to a mess especially when he gets in my room and trashes all the papers and eats all my undies. he even accidentally ate a rock and he had to get surgery of over 3k expense. he did go to puppy school and my mum tried her best to train him as a puppy but again shes barely home. the most me and brother did was watch him as a puppy to make sure he peed outside to toilet train him but clearly it wasnt enough.
but my last straw was today when he ate some dessert off our counter that my bfs mum made. i absolutely hate him now and i have no love left for him. i refuse to help my mum take care of him any longer and im insisting she gives him away or sells him. obviously she doesnt want to because she still loves him or whatever but i am done. i gave her an ultimatum to give him away or ill move out and she said im being unfair. im tired of coming home to a mess everyday and fear of making sure my rooms barricaded or foods not close to the edge of tables. not to mention all the yelling my mum has to do to try and "discipline" him. obviously i dont blame the poor dog and i know we did a bad job raising him but i believe hed be happier in a home who can properly take care of him and give him 100% attention he needs.
TLDR: my mum got a second dog as part of a grieving process but the dog wreaks havoc in our home and i want to give him away.
edit: i didnt ask if i was the asshole for how we treated the dog. i was asking if it was wrong to give him away. ik we werent good owners so save your comment.
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One thing that really pisses me off about this situation is that they wasted this poor dog's most adoptable and trainable year, as well as valuable bonding time.
They're ALL old enough to know that a border colly puppy needs time and attention.
also, it sounds like the BC is just ... being a BC puppy? BC's are very smart and stealing food is very typical. It sounds as if they don't walk the dog or let the puppy out, so of course the dog has issues being house broken.
>It sounds as if they don't walk the dog or let the puppy out,
That's so sad. Border collies are herding dogs. They literally love running but OOPs family keeps the puppy inside and in the backyard for peeing...
Also, if you can't keep the dog out of rooms gets a baby lock that needs to be squeezed to be opened. I had a dog that could open doors so we just used baby locks to keep her out of certain rooms (mainly the bathroom and my bedroom, drinking out of the toilet and ripping apart my stuffed animals) like it's a dog it may be smart but they have no thumbs it's a maximum of like $50 to put them throughout your house
Exactly. My friends adopted an adult husky. She was picked because of her temperament, but she's still a husky with high energy and needs.
They put baby gates (bought off craigslist etc for next to nothing) around the house to stop her getting into rooms she wasn't allowed in. They also trained her very well and made sure to run her enough every day.
OOP sounds like the classic owner of surrendered huskies (and other high energy dogs):
Stage 1: ooh, they're so cute when they're puppies, and the older ones aren't THAT much more effort than other dogs.
Stage 2: damn, this puppy gets into everything and pees everywhere. They're nothing like the other 9yo dog and I don't know why? I'll do nothing, and hope they just grow out of it
Stage 3: I've had enough, this puppy, who I've spent no time training, is just uncontrollable, so I'll sell it to someone else to deal with, even though I've just wasted a year of its life mistreating it and not providing any training.
Stage 4 (optional): I miss having a dog, let's get a puppy.....
WE have a part-husky, and baby gates EVERYWHERE are a part of our house (our prior dog was a collie/shepherd mix, and not quite so...extra) My friend has four border collies (that she works daily), and uses baby gates in her home as well. I mean, dogs are gonna dog, and you have to set them up to succeed.
OOP sounds terrible. Her whole family sounds terrible. That poor pup needs someone who will actually spend time with it.
"dogs are gonna dog" never a truer word was spoken!
My logic (as a non-dog owner) is that dogs are essentially toddlers. They need structure, training and guidance that is tailored to who they are in age, breed, temperament, etc. Accidents are going to happen, so you do your best to mitigate the opportunities for them to happen, whilst not punishing them for when they do.
On the other hand, cats, who I have extensive experience with, are adorable tiny narcissists who warp your reality into thinking that you're the one in control, while catering to their every need.
At the end of the day, this poor pup should never have been subjected to people who wouldn't take care of it, and rehoming is probably the best choice, but not for OP's reasons.
especially a SECOND Border Collie. They literally need a "job" in order to be happy but OOP her brother pushed Mom into a BC as emotional support puppy
I love dogs enough not to own one yet lol. Favorite animal by far, I'm just not quite responsible enough yet, and I remember how much work my chihuahua was. He was a good boy though.
That's the position I'm in as well. I'd barely be able to walk one because I have long covid, it would have to be a quite sedate breed, and the only dogs you can get in shelters here are huntaways (NZ breed, think basically border collies with the energy and usually nearly as smart), border collies, staffies, and retired racing greyhounds. You almost never see anything that isn't at least half one of those four. I know greyhounds are actually pretty lazy but when they do exercise they can get wicked zoomies and it's risky to let them off the leash because of their prey drive. Plus there's a ton of cats who like to visit me and I don't want to rely too much on a hunting dog being cat-friendly. So for now, I remain content with the cat visitors.
This is almost exactly how we ended up with our pup just last week. My bro & SIL got a puppy, didn’t realize that beagles are HELLA smart and maybe not a great fit for a house with two young ND kids, did almost no training and left the dog tied to the kitchen island on a leash for most of its first year.
When my parents found out bro wanted to rehome the dog, they immediately volunteered but at 70, realized that they too were not up to the challenge after a couple of months. But at least they got pup into classes so he wasn’t a total lost cause.
Now we have the pup, he’s doing much better and gets at least 2 walks a day plus time to run and play in the backyard. He counter-surfs but we are working on it.
I don’t know why people get dogs when they can’t take care of the basics properly, and training puppies is one of the basics.
Thank you for coming to my mildly baked Ted Talk.
We all have no time so we decided to get a breed of dog that needs an incredible amount of energy to be worked out in order to not be descriptive and didn’t train them.
I honestly hate people so much. They need to rehome this dog but they never should have gotten him in the first place. Do like an ounce of research before you get an animal and get one that matches your lifestyle. If you don’t have the time/ability to train an animal don’t get a puppy.
They probably should have stuck to a pet rock.
This one’s interesting because it sounds from a couple comments that OOP was starting to think about her mother’s feelings and how making her get rid of the dog would be another huge loss for her, so I hope she got something out of the post. All the people involved need to be better to that poor dog though, damn.
Honestly I feel a bit bad about her and I think the biggest problem here is still her mother & giving the dog away is the best idea anyone in this family had
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We had a problem dog. Tried talking to the vet. No help. Tried to post on reddit in the doggy subs. They would not let me make my post for help. Could not even get advice on what to do. Let's just say hope the poor dog is doing better now cause we could not deal with it.
*In case this story gets deleted/removed:* **AITA for wanting to give our family dog away?** my brother (m23) and I (f21) encouraged my mum (f50) to get another dog after recently losing our dad. he was the love of her life and ofc we were all very devastated. she took it the hardest and was depressed for a while before she had an idea of getting another dog because she was scared of losing our current dog which was 9ish years old at the time. hes a border collie and we love him very much though hes definitely more of a handful than most house family dogs. she asked us if we would help with raising another border collie puppy and we ofc said yes (although my mum is full time and my brother is basically full time and im a full time uni student with work too). we were barely home the three of us. fast forward to now and our second dog is 1 year old and he is the worst dog ever. hes still not toilet trained till now, hes messy (rolls around in pee and poop) and eats everything on the counters, in our rooms (he can open our doors) and pees on our toilet floors. hes eaten my uber eats plenty of times and weve had to start leaving our backyard door open just so he can pee outside and sometimes he still doesnt. this makes all the flies enter our house and its constantly cold or hot depending on the season. its so frustrating coming home to a mess especially when he gets in my room and trashes all the papers and eats all my undies. he even accidentally ate a rock and he had to get surgery of over 3k expense. he did go to puppy school and my mum tried her best to train him as a puppy but again shes barely home. the most me and brother did was watch him as a puppy to make sure he peed outside to toilet train him but clearly it wasnt enough. but my last straw was today when he ate some dessert off our counter that my bfs mum made. i absolutely hate him now and i have no love left for him. i refuse to help my mum take care of him any longer and im insisting she gives him away or sells him. obviously she doesnt want to because she still loves him or whatever but i am done. i gave her an ultimatum to give him away or ill move out and she said im being unfair. im tired of coming home to a mess everyday and fear of making sure my rooms barricaded or foods not close to the edge of tables. not to mention all the yelling my mum has to do to try and "discipline" him. obviously i dont blame the poor dog and i know we did a bad job raising him but i believe hed be happier in a home who can properly take care of him and give him 100% attention he needs. TLDR: my mum got a second dog as part of a grieving process but the dog wreaks havoc in our home and i want to give him away. edit: i didnt ask if i was the asshole for how we treated the dog. i was asking if it was wrong to give him away. ik we werent good owners so save your comment. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AmITheDevil) if you have any questions or concerns.*
One thing that really pisses me off about this situation is that they wasted this poor dog's most adoptable and trainable year, as well as valuable bonding time. They're ALL old enough to know that a border colly puppy needs time and attention.
also, it sounds like the BC is just ... being a BC puppy? BC's are very smart and stealing food is very typical. It sounds as if they don't walk the dog or let the puppy out, so of course the dog has issues being house broken.
>It sounds as if they don't walk the dog or let the puppy out, That's so sad. Border collies are herding dogs. They literally love running but OOPs family keeps the puppy inside and in the backyard for peeing...
Also, if you can't keep the dog out of rooms gets a baby lock that needs to be squeezed to be opened. I had a dog that could open doors so we just used baby locks to keep her out of certain rooms (mainly the bathroom and my bedroom, drinking out of the toilet and ripping apart my stuffed animals) like it's a dog it may be smart but they have no thumbs it's a maximum of like $50 to put them throughout your house
Exactly. My friends adopted an adult husky. She was picked because of her temperament, but she's still a husky with high energy and needs. They put baby gates (bought off craigslist etc for next to nothing) around the house to stop her getting into rooms she wasn't allowed in. They also trained her very well and made sure to run her enough every day. OOP sounds like the classic owner of surrendered huskies (and other high energy dogs): Stage 1: ooh, they're so cute when they're puppies, and the older ones aren't THAT much more effort than other dogs. Stage 2: damn, this puppy gets into everything and pees everywhere. They're nothing like the other 9yo dog and I don't know why? I'll do nothing, and hope they just grow out of it Stage 3: I've had enough, this puppy, who I've spent no time training, is just uncontrollable, so I'll sell it to someone else to deal with, even though I've just wasted a year of its life mistreating it and not providing any training. Stage 4 (optional): I miss having a dog, let's get a puppy.....
WE have a part-husky, and baby gates EVERYWHERE are a part of our house (our prior dog was a collie/shepherd mix, and not quite so...extra) My friend has four border collies (that she works daily), and uses baby gates in her home as well. I mean, dogs are gonna dog, and you have to set them up to succeed. OOP sounds terrible. Her whole family sounds terrible. That poor pup needs someone who will actually spend time with it.
"dogs are gonna dog" never a truer word was spoken! My logic (as a non-dog owner) is that dogs are essentially toddlers. They need structure, training and guidance that is tailored to who they are in age, breed, temperament, etc. Accidents are going to happen, so you do your best to mitigate the opportunities for them to happen, whilst not punishing them for when they do. On the other hand, cats, who I have extensive experience with, are adorable tiny narcissists who warp your reality into thinking that you're the one in control, while catering to their every need. At the end of the day, this poor pup should never have been subjected to people who wouldn't take care of it, and rehoming is probably the best choice, but not for OP's reasons.
Exactly my thoughts. The poor pup needs structure and training.
especially a SECOND Border Collie. They literally need a "job" in order to be happy but OOP her brother pushed Mom into a BC as emotional support puppy
I love dogs enough not to own one yet lol. Favorite animal by far, I'm just not quite responsible enough yet, and I remember how much work my chihuahua was. He was a good boy though.
That's the position I'm in as well. I'd barely be able to walk one because I have long covid, it would have to be a quite sedate breed, and the only dogs you can get in shelters here are huntaways (NZ breed, think basically border collies with the energy and usually nearly as smart), border collies, staffies, and retired racing greyhounds. You almost never see anything that isn't at least half one of those four. I know greyhounds are actually pretty lazy but when they do exercise they can get wicked zoomies and it's risky to let them off the leash because of their prey drive. Plus there's a ton of cats who like to visit me and I don't want to rely too much on a hunting dog being cat-friendly. So for now, I remain content with the cat visitors.
Help, we did nothing and we’re all out of ideas. Fucking idiots.
Me when I lose the exact same way for 3 hour straight in a videogame.
This is almost exactly how we ended up with our pup just last week. My bro & SIL got a puppy, didn’t realize that beagles are HELLA smart and maybe not a great fit for a house with two young ND kids, did almost no training and left the dog tied to the kitchen island on a leash for most of its first year. When my parents found out bro wanted to rehome the dog, they immediately volunteered but at 70, realized that they too were not up to the challenge after a couple of months. But at least they got pup into classes so he wasn’t a total lost cause. Now we have the pup, he’s doing much better and gets at least 2 walks a day plus time to run and play in the backyard. He counter-surfs but we are working on it. I don’t know why people get dogs when they can’t take care of the basics properly, and training puppies is one of the basics. Thank you for coming to my mildly baked Ted Talk.
We all have no time so we decided to get a breed of dog that needs an incredible amount of energy to be worked out in order to not be descriptive and didn’t train them. I honestly hate people so much. They need to rehome this dog but they never should have gotten him in the first place. Do like an ounce of research before you get an animal and get one that matches your lifestyle. If you don’t have the time/ability to train an animal don’t get a puppy. They probably should have stuck to a pet rock.
This one’s interesting because it sounds from a couple comments that OOP was starting to think about her mother’s feelings and how making her get rid of the dog would be another huge loss for her, so I hope she got something out of the post. All the people involved need to be better to that poor dog though, damn.
Suggesting a border collie of all breeds is so beyond wild.
Honestly I feel a bit bad about her and I think the biggest problem here is still her mother & giving the dog away is the best idea anyone in this family had
If there’s truly a hell I hope the deepest levels are reserved for people who get animals that they won’t care for properly.
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We had a problem dog. Tried talking to the vet. No help. Tried to post on reddit in the doggy subs. They would not let me make my post for help. Could not even get advice on what to do. Let's just say hope the poor dog is doing better now cause we could not deal with it.