Divorce and pets

[NextChapter2019]

Hi everyone

I'd really welcome any advice.

DH and I are divorcing. I'm divorcing him based on unreasonable behaviour.

One of the upsetting things I'm trying to deal with is what to do about our dog. We have a five year old doggie and I obviously love her very much.

DH is self employed and works from home so is with the dog all day but, he is quite irresponsible and regularly misses days of walks etc and he smoke a lot of weed which means he sleep a lot at weekends etc so the dog is left on her own if I'm not there.
But on the flip side the dog adores him.

I work long hours full time. But I would love to have the dog after we stop living together. This would mean though that I would have to hire a dog walker or put the dog in doggy day care which is going to be expensive. Plus on a selfish note a dog would be a massive tie as I try to move on with my life if I want to, for example, go away for an evening/weekend. I feel selfish even typing that.

Part of me thinks the dog would be happier with DH as he works from home but, after the divorce we have no idea where DH will live or whether it would be suitable for the dog. He said something really hurtful when we discussed the dog and he said if he had her he "hoped he wouldn't have to sell her". I couldn't believe he would even consider it!

I'm just curios about whether anyone else had this issue and what you decided. Any advice would be really appreciated.

Thanks

[Lonecatwithkitten]

As a vet I have come across this type of situation on multiple occasions and several dogs have been subject to legal orders related to care, custody and health care decisions.
I have seen shared care with one person one week and the other the next, one person during the week the other at a weekend. Orders regarding who pays for what part of healthcare and who ultimately makes end of life decisions.

[tisonlymeagain]

I know a couple of people who have shared care of dogs. I left my pet behind and it was a really tough decision but I think it was the right thing.

[apparentlyso]

I think the short term solution would be to share the dog, agreeing who would do what.
If you and your ex can't have a reasonable discussion about this, then sharing won't work and I would probably leave the dog with him full time (unless he said he didn't want the dog).

When I split with my husband he took the dog (no discussion) but the dog was always more his and I didn't particularly want the dog (he was very big and I wouldn't have been able to take him to work with me, so it would have cost me too much in walkers etc). I would have had the original dog if needed full time, but I wouldn't have been able to share responsibility with my ex because I wanted my ex out of my life for good (no children) and my ex was very unreasonable to deal with.
I got myself a little rescue dog within a few weeks who basically comes everywhere with me (including work) and is much easier to manage with my new lifestyle.

[Itsnotme123]

I acquired a cat, my then husband didn’t want it and refused to have much to do with it. A couple of years later he was growing fond of her. When I left the home I wrote a note to ex saying please look after the cat, (I know it’s not quite the same as a dog but still) it wasn’t fair for her to change homes and I felt that he needed her company more than I did. He was happy to have her.