Kind of a long story short, have been close friends for years and this friend was my maid of honour at my wedding, I was hers and our DHs are best friends. I have had a dog for 2 years and they have had a cat for 4 years. For the last 5 years we have lived about 5 hours drive from each other and we would take it in turns once a month for who would do the drive to visit each other. Since we have had our dog we have been able to take him with us when we go to stay with them in the hope our dog and their cat will become friends. We have since moved to live within an hour of our friends meaning we can visit much more easily. However, the friends have suddenly decided that our dog scares their cat and they can't have that so if we want to visit we can't bring our dog anymore. Don't get me wrong, I totally get this and if someone brought their pet to my house and scared my dog I would feel the same. Our dog has never our near their cat btw. He is always on a lead in their house and just so happens to bark excitedly as the cat comes downstairs to go out of her cat flap. The friends say that the cat gets so scared that she hides under the bed as soon as she smells our dog... I'm kind of thinking that this is an excuse as our dog stayed with us at theirs loads as a puppy, so I am sort of thinking that now he is much bigger they just don't want him in the house which is fine, each to their own!
However, we are now in a position where we can't visit our friends unless we put our dog in kennels. This is quite costly for the weekend and to be honest I don't want to because in the same way as our dog stresses their cat, going into kennels really stresses our dog out and I would never do it unless I really had to in an emergency! He is a pampered dog and doesn't like it!
So we have made endless suggestions about meeting up half way, going on a country walk and a pub lunch, them staying with us etc but all met with radio silence. Both of them are off work this weekend (which is a bit rare for all 4 of us to be off at the same weekend) and have invited us to stay with them. They only asked us yesterday and only my DH is going because one of us has to stay here with our dog. Am I being unreasonable to think either why couldn't they have come here or meet up halfway?!
They live next door to friends who frequently look after their cat. We on the other hand don't know anyone who could look after our dog! We just moved to this area and the only people we know are these friends who live an hour away. I feel like they're not being very considerate of our situation despite us making suggestions to meet up half way or them come to us. When both my DH and I explained that one of us would have to stay at home with the dog this weekend we were met with "oh never mind then we will see you a different time". I certainly agree with their choice about not allowing our dog at their house and that's not the part I think they're BU about, it's just they don't seem to want to compromise! Or am I being unreasonable and should just pay £60 for my dog to stay in a kennel with some strangers he doesn't know and him coming back stressed to death?!