Hi all,
This whole situation is very long winded but I’ll try and stick to the relevant information. Basically, I know a couple (former couple now), let’s called them Stacey and Mark. They were living together, but they’ve always been on again off again, and in one of their off periods, Stacey decided to get a puppy. Mark never agreed with this because it wasn’t a very practical or financially responsible decision, but he still cares about the dog, just never claimed any ownership over it. The dog is now approximately a year old and in that year Stacey has decided it was not allowed out in her home, EVER, and had to live exclusively in a cage. So it has never been trained in any remote way. She rarely took the dog for walks and would only let it out in the garden for a short time each day. In my opinion, this dog has been neglected, but then I am very sensitive about animal cruelty and I appreciate some dogs do get crate trained etc.. but the way this dog has been living never really sat right with me.
In the last few months, Stacey has been expressing that she wants to rehome the dog. I believe she bought the dog on a whim and never truly thought of how much work would go into taking care of them. But before she could “get around” to rehoming the dog, things took a bizarre turn about a month ago and Stacey basically decided to leave Mark (again), her house and her dog.
I won’t go into all the insane details of that, but Mark has been taking care of the dog for the past month now, and has no idea if she intends on coming back for the dog (based on some of the things she is doing, it seems unlikely but not impossible). Mark is not in a position to keep the dog though, and needs to move out himself. He feels incredibly bad for the dog, and the dog is still living out most of his days in this cage because Stacey never made any effort to house train him and Mark was concerned that if he went against Stacey’s wishes and she were to return and found the dog had wrecked the house, she would go mad.
Mark wants the dog to have a better life, and so do I, but what is the best course of action? What would you do in this situation? Should we just call the RSPCA? Or take him to an animal shelter or something? I truly don’t know, and also don’t want to be accused of “stealing” someone’s dog, but it is really awful seeing such a lovely animal having to live this way.