Please settle this argument. Dp and I have been together 2 years and when we met I already had my dog, who is 9 now. I got him when I was pg with dd1 and since then have pretty much always worked from home, so my dog has rarely been left on his own for any more than a few hours. I recently started college 2 days a week and I get up half an hour earlier so that I can drive the dog over to my mum's house, otherwise he would be shut in for 8 hours.
Dp won't stop going on about getting another dog. He used to breed pedigree dogs and really misses having his own dog, which is fair enough. But the problem, as far as I see it, is that I will be going to uni next year so will not be around so much, then after uni I will be working ft, if all goes to plan. So we will both be working ft and I think it's not right to get a dog knowing that for its whole life it's going to be left at home on its own for at least 9 hours a day. My dog will be 13 by then so will be cracking on. My mum doesn't mind having him but she would point blank refuse to look after another dog, especially as she has two of her own.
Dp's view is that there is nothing wrong with leaving a dog that long for 5 days a week, as lots of people do it. I know that's true but it just doesn't sit comfortably with me. I know I would be the one tearing myself up feeling guilty about the dog being on its own. Opinions?
AIBU?
To think leaving a dog on its own for 9 hours a day plus is mean?
Beavie · 22/10/2013 22:19
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Astonished that someone who bred dogs would consider it OK to leave one indoors for 9 hours a day.
I think we push it with a dog at home for nearly 8 hours a day. He has a front, side and back garden to run around, has two off-leash runs every day without fail, 2/3 beach and sea runs every week, and I'm there on the school holidays. Even then, I know he's always happiest when we're around.
Sorry, your DP is also being a knob for comparing your wish for a cat as being the same as commitment to a dog.
Having said that, our new cat is amazingly person dependent, and when any one person is in the house, they are shadowed by both dog and cat.
Each can only "let go" if the pack is at home.
The beasties need us (people in general, that is). You are right to look to the future of a dog's life, OP. Stay firm.
CackleCackle said what I was too wimpy to say. So many thousands and thousands of dogs in rescues and people are still breeding. Makes me 
.
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See, I don't get that it's ok to go out for the day and leave your dog "access to the garden". I subscribe to a rescue service and the amount of folks that lose their dogs from their back gardens is ridiculous. Not just thieves you have to worry about, but someone opening the gate either deliberately or by accident, the dog coming across a wee hole in the fence and going off for a jolly across a busy road, or digging under the fence, or jumping a 6-foot wall (which we were horrified to discover our lab could easily do, after we'd had her almost 3 years)...the possibilities are endless. Not to mention the dog being outside all day and howling its head off and pissing off the neighbours because what he/she wants is HUMAN COMPANY, not to be left alone for hours and hours on end without knowing when the human is coming back 
Our dogs have access to a third of an acre walled garden which has been gone over inch by inch for possible breaches, because we've had some of the above happen but luckily when we were at home, because I would never leave my dogs outside even if I'm only popping to the shops. They're only ever left outside to play when someone is at home.
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