SIL and Dogs!

[DillyDingDillyDong]

NC for this. Not sure if this is more of a WWYD or possibly just a rant!

It's DS's birthday on Friday and we're having a little party in our house on Saturday. There will be about 20 adults and ten children from 1-8.

SIL doesn't have any children, quite often makes a point of saying she doesn't want any, but has two dogs. She text DH last night to see if we needed her to bring anything and DH asked if she could pick a cake up from Costco on the way to save us doing it on Friday. She replied saying that she wouldn't have room in the car for the cake with the dogs being in there.

DH replied asking why the dogs would be in the car and she replied saying that she wouldn't be able to leave them at home for the few hours she is out at the party.

DH ended up calling her up and telling her that the dogs wouldn't be able to come, she then went on to say how the weekend is her time with the dogs and she doesn't want to leave them. She also knows that we've recently had our garden done and so said it would be really nice for them to be able to play outside. He just repeated that the dogs weren't able to come as we are possibly getting a bouncy castle on the day(our friend owns one and can give it to us last minute) if the weather is ok. She accused him of making this up and that he should have made it clear the invite wasn't for the whole family before saying that if her dogs went welcome then she wouldn't be comings do then hung up. DH was just in shock and we couldn't think of anything else to say to her. If she wants to miss her nephews first birthday because she can't leave the dogs for four hours at the most despite leaving them from half seven to half seven every day at work then it's up to her.

She text me earlier to ask if DH had told me what she had said. I replied and said he had and that it was a shame for her to miss the party but the dogs can't come and we had assumed that she would have known that. She replied saying it was a shame that we didn't recognise that the dogs are part of her family. I said that I know she cares about her dogs but this is a child's party and we don't want them here for it. She has just replied with this text

"I feel like you don't realise how important they are to me. They are my family, my babies. I would never not invite DS to my house or say he wasn't welcome or suggest you leave him at home or with a sitter. I'm not going to come on Saturday. I haven't seen DSsince Christmas and was looking forward to it but it's unfair to ask me to give up time with the boys when I get to spend so little time with them as it is."

I am sat here just in disbelief. I don't even know what to say to her.

I know I'm not being unreasonable not inviting the dogs to my house. I just have no idea where to go with this now. DH is in a meeting until one so I can't even call him to tell him what's been said. My jaw is aching from my face just being like this for the last ten minutes! She's always been very precious about the dogs and didn't come to a Christmas Eve thing at our old flat because we didn't have space for the dogs and all the presents were out under the tree etc. But I thought she would be a bit more reasonable about leaving them for a few hours to see DS.

Does anyone have any advice please?!

So glad that nobody has disagreed with me!

I'm going to reply with "I'm sorry you can't make it, hopefully we will be able to see you soon."

She is impossible to reason with at the best of times but is even more stubborn with the dogs. She brought them along to MiL at Christmas and DS was just starting to crawl around so wanted to explore but she ended up bringing his travel cot downstairs to put him I just in case the dogs were frightened or DS tried to grab them. I was on Skype to my brother in another room while this was going on. The second I came back he was out the cot and she was told to keep an eye on the dogs or move them away if she was that bothered.

I asked DH if maybe it's a jealousy thing. We get a lot of attention from PIL and other family members with DS but he doesn't think so. I also wondered if maybe it was because she really wants a baby but DH told me that her last boyfriend before the one she has now broke up with her because she told him she didn't ever want to settle down or have children.

Im not going to arrange another thing for her to come when it suits her. If she wants to see DS then she can organise it herself.

AnUtterIdiot

Your sensible measured post clearly demonstrates that your name is an inaccurate reflection of you.

She's made her decision. It's up to her. Leave it now.

There'll have been other engagements/invitations which she has turned down in the past and more in the future if she never leaves her animals at home alone at the weekend. It's her choice.

Not your problem OP. This is rod for own back territory and there's nothing you can do about it.

Hotnatured

But would you repeatedly miss family gatherings on the grounds that you couldn't bring your dogs?

Hot I understand that as I don't want children myself however the way she insists she doesn't want children then says dogs are her babies and she leaves them alone for hours but not to attend a child's party would make me think there's a deeper issue. I did not say it was a correct assumption just that it's a possibility and therefore if at some point she tries to apologise or something it might be nice to forgive her as there could be deeper issues there. Her behaviour isn't normal behaviour....

PinotEgregio

Bloody hell. Seriously, don't tar everyone with your brush. I say I don't want children because I absolutely do not.

I wouldn't reply. She's not worth it.

I have to say though, However it sounds to me as if she can't have children and uses her dogs as substitutes which is quite sad is quite a supposition and quite offensive to women like me who choose not to have children. As another poster says, not every woman is desperate for children. And not every woman who has, and loves, dogs, uses them as baby substitutes.

PinotEgregio

No, but what's that got to do with you insisting she wants kids despite saying she does not?

her call to spend her life with her dogs rather than people.

unless you want the garden destroyed, don't let them in. And you certainly can't have dogs round lots of small children for obvious reasons.

not babies, dogs. They think she is pack leader and food provider.

And she might not want children, as I don't. But this is not normal behaviour and it'd be nice if at some point she changes her behaviour her family could be understanding that there MAY be other issues surrounding this. Unless of course she's always like this in which case tell her to fucking off.

HotNatured.

I wasn't tarring everyone.

I said what I had done. I said Maybe and your SIL. Not everyone.

Only if you read my second post you'd see where I say I don't want children myself. However dealing with a relative who is desperate for children, uses her dogs as substitutes and avoids children to the point of going NC with some family members I was just giving another perspective.

Explain to her that you are worried that some of the guests are not dog friendly, and it would be unfair to put the dogs in a stressful situation, where people/children who don't know how to treat dogs might be inappropriate with them, explain there will be no where to put the dogs out of harms way.

Try to spin it as you don't want to do her lovely dogs a great big disservice by asking them to cope with an environment where they might get abused.

She's bonkers. All the children and the noise will stress the dogs out, and there'll inevitably be children there that don't like dogs so the dogs will stress them out. And I say this as a mental animal lady that lives in a zoo including 2 dogs.

If that were me and the party was this time of year, I'd bring the dogs and leave them in the car in their crate - it has a nice bed in it, and water, and they are very happy to be left in for a couple of hours on a cold day. No different to being crated at home. Then she can go out and let them out for a wee and a leg stretch. This doesn't work during the spring/summer months though. No-one wants to cook their dogs.

I have to ask - what kind of dogs/car does she have that she can't fit a cake in too?!

I would reply with 'Oh, okay, sorry you won't be here. Hope to see you soon.'

This. Another dog person here who thinks she's barking up the wrong tree I'll get my coat

And that's fine - not everyone wants children, even "barmy menopausal ladies" (most of us have had our children, and most of us are not barmy) but to refer to your dogs as your babies, your boys and your family suggests there is a little bit more to this.

Or maybe not. Maybe she is just truly off the wall.

I wasn't insisting. I suggested it as a possibility.

Try to spin it as you don't want to do her lovely dogs a great big disservice by asking them to cope with an environment where they might get abused.

Bollocks to that. Why should the OP spend time 'spinning' anything? The SIL doesn't want to come. Fine. End of.

Sorry, I should have said that her boyfriend leaves for work just before nine and is back over lunch to walk them and then is home just after five. He also sometimes works from home two afternoons a week. I meant that she is away from them for that long.

She has in the past compared DS and the dogs as if they are the same. We had some unsuccessful pregnancies before DS which she was able to understand as she found it hard to find the right breeder. Also, it took a couple of nights for one dog to not cry at night so she knows all about babies and sleepless nights. She also suggested that we use a whistle thing to show try and train DS. When she saw my face she said that she meant to encourage him to behave the way we want him to.

I have to ask - what kind of dogs/car does she have that she can't fit a cake in too?!

I am secretly hoping OP comes back to say "Rottweiler and Micra" or something

"She brought them along to MiL at Christmas and DS was just starting to crawl around so wanted to explore but she ended up bringing his travel cot downstairs to put him I just in case the dogs were frightened or DS tried to grab them."

So, why on earth does she think it will be a good idea to bring them to a children's party where there will be lots of over-excited children?

"I'm sorry that you can't make it on Saturday and we hope to see you again another time. I know that you feel that we are making you unwelcome but we don't think it's appropriate to have two dogs running around a garden full of babies and toddlers. We know your dogs but other parents don't and you would not be happy to have the dogs tied up or worse still muzzled to keep a bunch of strangers happy"

She suggested you use a whistle to train your son.....

Just text her back and say she is welcome to visit with her dogs on another day but this party is for your son and your home will be full of children. Sorry if there was confusion, but she is welcome any time.

You can't have strange dogs at a children's birthday party. End of story. I think anyone reasonable would understand that.