DH has booked a weekend away just us 2 for my 40th and our 15yr wedding anniversary. He has said he is going to ask his Mum to babysit. I'm torn over this.
I will start by saying I am a little dog phobic. Was badly attacked by one as a child and still have the scars to prove it. I'm OK around small dogs that I know and are well trained and happy to let DC play with them etc.
MIL has just rescued a dog from her local dogs home (not 100% sure on breed sorry) but it's a "big" dog. Very little is known about it's past- but MIL herself told me it barred it's teeth at a child who got over excited when they were out walking a few weeks ago.
She treats it like a baby- it's allowed to go anywhere in the house, sleeps on her bed, eats off her plates etc. She keeps asking me to bring DC (3 and 16 months) round to meet him.
She is quite an irresponsible dog owner. I'm not in anyway suggesting she gets rid as she is very lonely atm- DFil passed away at Halloween and she is quite isolated so the dog is her only company some days. But she has no training regime and the dog runs riot around the house. This is all at DMILs admission and from what we have seen on Skype.
She had a collie previously who ended up having to get put down because it got out of her garden and was run over. It was completely barking. The dog was lovely and wasn't aggressive but it would jump all over eldest DC when he was tiny and would push him over when he was toddling about. MIL didn't understand what the "big deal was and to see it as a learning curve for him". She would never put the dog outside when I came round with him- the best we got was he would be locked in the kitchen and would howl the place down and then you would get jumped all over if you went in for a cup of tea or whatever. Me and DH would argue with her continuously with her over this and then when her collie was run over while we felt sorry for her we couldn't help but feel "we told you so". DFil was the same when he was alive.
I don't want to pass my phobia on to my DC at all. I really don't- i'm happy for them to be around dogs and may even consider getting a small, trainable one ourselves when they are old enough to help care for it.
Now the issue:
We don't have many friends around here (or ones that would babysit for 3 nights anyway) and my family live abroad. Our options are either MIL who is an hours drive away and 30 mins away from the airport we are flying from or SIL and her DP who live at the other end of the country so to take them to SIL we would have to take extra days off work, drive up and drop the DC off and double back on ourselves to get to the airport and drive up to collect them which will be added expense with fuel.
MIL won't kennel the dog. She has never liked kennels and if she has gone on holiday in the past when she had a dog she would send it to SIL or DP had it when he lived alone.
DP doesn't want to drive to SILs. I don't want the DC going to MILs where there is a dog who will be a pampered brat and who's history we don't know anything about and has shown aggressive tendencies. Both will be more than happy to babysit
I've told DP unless he comes up with a solution we will have to cancel the weekend away. He has gone off to work in a sulk.
AIBU?