I’d like some opinions on this please if possible.
Some background: I’ve been away from my ex now for 5.5 years. Me and DS left the family home because of his violent and abusive behaviour. I’ve tried to get him to settle our shared ownership house and the divorce for the whole of this time and basically he’s done nothing but lie and ignore my solicitor’s letters. I’ve taken him to court but I’m having to drop it because the judge is favouring his needs over ours and I can’t afford to continue to get nothing out of it. A few years ago his already heavy drinking got way out of control to the point where SS were involved because of an incident between him and his current DP, and basically they said DS was no longer safe to have contact. It’s only now that DS is finally telling me about his mistreatment, including his father being repeatedly violent, so as you might imagine things are a bit acrimonious between us.
Anyway, we had two lovely staffies. I had to leave them with him when we left because I couldn’t take them. He never walked them and never picked up their shit from the garden. He used to get pissed and leave the door open a lot, so they would wonder off all the time. The council dog warden brought them back on several occasions but one day the younger one, our boy staffie, wondered off and never came back. He didn’t call the warden and he didn’t go looking for him, he just let him go. He told me he wasn’t bothered because he was fed up of the dog anyway.
Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago and he rang me to tell me the other one had died. She was getting on a bit, she was 12, but she was also massively over weight. DS told me that when he used to visit, ex would leave all his dinner and give it to the dog, so the dog just got fatter and fatter. So much so that he’d bragged to DS over the phone that she had to crawl up the stairs, and that he wasn’t going to take her to the vets for her booster because she was too fat and the vet would tell him off. I did call the RSPCA after that to report him but the officer went round and then called to tell me that the dog was ok and ‘he’d given the owner some tips. Ex obviously didn’t know it was me who’d called them because when he rang to tell me about the dog dying he said ‘the dog wasn’t over weight because the RSPCA had been round and told me so.’ Then he told me to fuck off and slammed the phone down.
Any road, I was just speaking to DM and she said ex had rung her a couple of weeks ago asking where he could get another dog, but not to tell me because he wanted to tell me himself. She told him to go look on the internet like everybody else. Clearly he’s got a fucking nerve, ringing his estranged wife’s mother, and of course he’s not told me, he knows what I’d say.
So anyway this is what I want your opinions on if you’d be so kind: He’s lost one dog, he’s contributed to the premature death of the other by allowing her to become obese, and I mean obese, and now he’s trying to get another. The house is a shit tip from hell, the garden is a carpet of dog shit, there’s broken glass by the back door that’s been there for years and still hasn’t been cleared to my knowledge and he can hardly walk now because of the affects of his drinking, which he is still most definitely doing. Is there anything I can do to stop him from getting and mistreating another dog? Is there any point me calling the RSPCA? They weren’t concerned enough about the previous dog to remove her, which I understand. Even though they acknowledged that the situation was bad, it’s difficult to remove an aging dog. so would they be able to do anything to prevent him from getting another?
I’ve got a lot on my plate at the moment. I’m moving house in a couple of months, I need to resolve this court issue one way or the other and I want absolutely nothing to do with him. Should I be worrying about this? It’s not really my business but I don’t want to stand by and watch him mistreat another animal.
Thanks, and sorry for long OP.