To Expect a full replacement?

[AThousandSuns]

Greetings.

My DP and I have been looking after my MIL's dog while she is away on holiday for two weeks. We don't mind this at all, as we often do favours for eachother.

MIL suggested that the dog be put in the bathroom overnight, as he barks like a crazed lunatic for most of the night due to him being used to sleeping on MIL's bed. He was put in there with the door closed to drown out the noise and allow us all to sleep.

Yesterday I got up in the morning to find the bathroom flooring shredded. He had attempted to dig his way out. We have a downstairs bathroom that is joined to our kitchen, and they have a tile effect vinyl flooring going through both of them. Still on holiday, MIL was informed of the distruction and said she would replace the damaged floor.

The question is this - how much should she replace? As I said, we've always had matching flooring in the bathroom and kitchen. So replacing the bathroom only with an equivilent (though not exactly the same because we can't find the exact same one) would mean that they are no longer matching.

It would cost about £100 to replace the bathroom only, or about £250 to replace the kitchen and bathroom. The kitchen flooring does have several scuffs, rips and stains, but nothing we weren't happy to live with.

Would you want to whole thing done or would you settle for the bathroom only? Would you pay for the whole thing or just the bathroom only?

If you have all these issues you shouldn't have offered to look after the dog.

And I really don't understand why you couldn't wait till she got back to tell her that she owes you money and her dog is miserable??

she should only pay for only bathroom floor or maybe half of the total amount of kitchen/bathroom.

Can you leave dog in MIL's house during over night and just have it with you during the day?

or kennels next time? explain to MIL you can't cope with the sleep deprivation.

YABVU to expect her to replace the kitchen floor too. Honestly, no one in the entire world apart from a loon would care that they don't match.

Skybluepearl - I thought of that, but he doesn't have the most brilliant of bladder control, so I've been having to get up extra early to walk him and stay up a bit later to make sure he's walked right before bed.

Personally, I actually agreed with you all, the bathroom only. But DP seems to think that MIL should pay for like-for-like, which is matching. She seems to think it would cause bad feelings of some sort.

As for calling her while she's on holdiay, not 100% certain. That was DP who called while I was away. Again, I'd have left it til she got back.

Maybe just maybe rather than talking about the flooring at £100 your MIL should pay good money to get the dog trained, or she should address his problems before leaving him - That dog is showing signs of distress and the stealing stuff can be stopped the barking can be stopped, all of his behavoiur as a result of poor training and possible treating him like a human.

Which is why he is trying to dominate your dog he thinks he's human!

Maybe your MIL should concentrate on fixing the poor dog, spend her money on your floor and then pay money on a good trainer, before spending money on holidays.

Sounds like your being great BTW, and dealing with the situation the best way you can but I wouldn't have the dog back until it was trained.

I agree with him sleeping at MIL's house, even if he does urinate everywhere. He clearly needs training.

Cable, that's another problem. The dog is completely and utterly untrained.

He climbs up on the furniture (that he can get onto), he chews everything, he doesn't listen to commands, he jumps up on everyone, he barks constantly...

Plus our major complaint is his weight. He's a Cavelier King Charles, and should be between 6 and 8kgs. He's 17kgs. He can hardly walk properly because she's overfed him so much. She actually cooks him extra portions of food .

And what really gets on my nerves is that the other relatives like this little shit because he's small. And they keep saying we should get rid of our laborador because he's too big. When my lab is the perfect size and fitness, he doesn't bark, he has never growled at anything is his life, he listens to commands, his toilet training is excellent, and now that he's approaching 3 years old he's stopped running around so much when visitors arrive. He is brilliant with the children, and is often lying cuddled up with our 2 year old. And they don't like him because he's big. (rant over).

Here - have a (dog)

You sound like a complete bell end

I think Lentilly has it spot on really.

If the dog is that much overweight, report your MIL to the RSPCA. If a dog was underweight by that much (well, it'd be dead in this case the neglect is so serious) no one would think twice about calling them.

However, what sort of person calls any dog a 'little shit'? Especially when ti is clearly distressed and for a Cav to do that much damage to vinyl flooring, it must have been extremely distressed.

If you were someone I knew, I would report you both to the RSPCA.

You shouldn't have agreed to take the dog - you can't look after him properly for a whole host of reasons. Suggest to your MIL that she gets someone (house sitter?) to look after him in his own home next time. We used to pay a sitter to look after our cat when we went away. It was expensive, but probably cheaper than rebuilding your whole house after the distressed dog has wrecked it.

I would get a decent sized cage for the dog at night so he can't destroy anything. I'd also look into some sort of DAP plug in to help calm him. Definitely a major training issue though. Dogs can be more stressed through lack of training and not knowing their place. A dog that knows it's bottom of the pack is generally happier as it has no need to constantly assert itself. Chewing can also be a sign of boredom, so maybe give the dog a stuffed kong at night.

Also, just the bathroom payment for mil. If you want the kitchen done as well then you should pay the extra.

& there is the problem. Clearly she treats the dog as a human & not a dog so the dog has issues that as cabbage said need resolving though if, as you say, he's twice the recommended weight for the breed it may not be long before his heart says fuck this & packs up anyway- fat dogs irritate me, well not the dogs, the owners obviously

at your latest post OP, poor dog!

The lot of you shouldn't have animals at all.

Perhaps referring to him as a "little shit" was a bit extreme, but I having had about 5 hours sleep all week I think getting a little grumpy isn't too bad - as long as I don't take it out on the dog. He should have been trained properly.

How she's got him so fat is completely beyond us.

Why both of us, Midori?

The poor dog has been taking out of his home, away from its owner, to a new place with another dog, children, and your only concern is whether your bathroom floor matches your kitchen floor?

Of course it was barking and crying and ripping things up.

Maybe if you had not locked it in a bathroom and actually let it sleep with you, then it wouldnt have ripped the floor?
And if you are so concerned about its weight etc, why have you let it go until now, why not try and help, walk the dog as you live so close and I would imagine walk your own dog.

And you really called your MIL on holiday to tell her???
What do you want her to do, come home now and retile the floor herself?

And let me just add this - any OP that starts "Greetings" should trigger an automatic MN flush mechanism and thereby join the rest of the effluent on it's way to the sewers.

You definitely should not have dogs - or any animals - and if I knew you I'd bloody report you too.

To my mind it doesn't matter whose dog it is. You locked it in a room all night so you could ignore its barking when it was distressed. Not surprisingly it caused some damage, and IMO that's your fault and you should pay for the repairs.

She should replace BOTH floors on account of suggesting you do such a horrible thing to an animal. And on account of distressing you and causing you extra trouble.

MIL needs to train her dog properly and stop feeding it so much, or it will die.

Flooring: if you want the two to match I'd ask MIL to cover bathroom cost and meet the kitchen cost yourself.

Give MIL a good talking to in relation to the health of her pet! And suggest she uses a pet sitter next time then it's her own home it destroys. Or if it's so anxious without her she should book pet friendly holidays.

I don't understand why some posters here seem to think this dog is your problem OP!

When I take my spaniel to my mums he can't be separated from her dog because he barks to try and get out and play with him.

When this poor animal is locked in the bathroom where is your dog?

I just read the rest of the thread.

Why do you think your mum is so cruel to her dog?

And interestingly, this now causes you to clearly disrespect an despise the dog.

Human nature eh. We treat our dogs like we do each other.

Cockwomble - it is the OPs problem if she offers to take care of it!

The dog was shut in the bathroom only at 2am as it wouldn't stop barking, and only on the suggestion of MIL.

The OP gave reason why it couldn't sleep in their bed.