Pregnant, moving in together but I cannot stand his dogs

[fluffypillowspls]

I’m three months pregnant and currently do not live with my partner. Since becoming pregnant, I really cannot stand the smell of his dogs. I also really hate the fur everywhere.

One of these dogs is quite elderly and realistically won’t be around in spring next year when I am due. I think this is a really smelly one as he doesn’t take it to be groomed as they are so old.

His house at the moment really smells of dog and I decided as of last night that I’m not going to his house anymore. He can’t stay at mine because he has to go back to his to look after the dogs.

He has given notice on his flat and will be moving back to his mum’s for a few months to help her as she’s old with Health Issues. The plan for December January times was for him to rent a place for both of us. I really do want to live with him, and I know at that point of my pregnancy. I will really need him around and want him around. However, I cannot stand the thought of his stinky dogs being in the house and the fur everywhere.

The thought of having a child and having fur all over their baby clothes really stresses me out. When I go over to his house now I literally have to hold my nose and he does try his best to clean mop etc but on some occasions it is really strong smelling. He is his nose blind to this and doesn’t realise and I’m sure he thinks I’m exaggerating.

I am bothered by this so much that I actually wish I could turn back the clock and not get pregnant because he does come with the dogs as a package. Obviously, I can’t do that and I’m not going to terminate, especially at this point, but I just feel so stressed out and down about this.

I’m considering maybe we just don’t live together once we have the child so I don’t have to be around the dogs but when I broach this with him, he was offended and did not agree at all with the idea.

I can’t tell him not to keep his dogs and I wouldn’t say that because one he would resent me and two he had them first, but I just cannot see a world where I am happy with having these two dogs or even just one of them around.

He has said that when we get this place together, he can section off areas for the dog/s to be, But I still think the house is going to stink and the fur will still get everywhere. I want my baby to be able to crawl around and not have fur all over them.

I don’t even know what I want from this post, but has anyone been in this situation and has it got better? Or am I just doomed? Has anyone decided to live apart from their partner.

In this particular scenario, yes, I’m being dead serious.

Hmm. Snakes rarely are taken out for walks, roll in fox poo, sniff each others bums, eat something unsavoury ( my friends dog likes to pull Tampax out of the bin to chomp on unless he is carefully monitored) vomit it up on the carpet, shed hair ( maybe skin but in a confined Cage) catch fleas, ticks …could go on. Dogs do smell and definitely need more looking after, including bathing and grooming regularly. I wouldn’t want be doing all this and having a newborn, especially if I didn’t like the dogs in question.

Hopefully once given birth your smell sense will reduce a bit and as and when older dog passes away then things /smells won’t seem as bad

and living together may work in a larger home with dog free spaces

when I was preg , I had hg but smells were so profound that if /when someone would walk past me in the street /in a shop carrying a take out coffee , I would retch and often be sick - had many bags with me

I am aware of this, I was responding to the blanket 'unwashed animals stink' perspective. 'unwashed' is subjective.Some animals do not need to 'wash' in the sense of what it means from a human perspective.

I wouldn't either. So I would not do it.

Dogs do chew tampons yes. . But they aren't thinking like what a (somewhat odd) human might 'Ooh lovely menstrual blood that's been inside a female human's vagina, delicious', they're thinking from the perspective of a dog, their deeply-embedded scavenger instinct. This makes them different to us of course, they're a much more strongly evolved animal. It does not make them 'gross' or 'disgusting' for following their instincts any more than we're 'gross' or 'disgusting' for doing things they wouldn't do. Plenty of human habits are unhygienic and unhealthy and 'gross', if we spend a moment to think about them.

Oh dear - dog obsession taken to its ultimate extreme.
No wonder non dog owners are not happy.

Erm…yes it does! 🤣 and smelly.

Not really. I don’t think being a responsible owner is all that extreme.

I believe throwing your dog of 10 years out like yesterday’s newspaper simply because you got your gf of who knows how long up the duff, is unacceptable. Especially as they live separately, therefore can continue to do so until a time comes that is convenient for both partners.

I’d argue the extreme element of this thread is that a woman thinks she can just demand unreasonable things simply because she is pregnant, it reeks of entitlement. I think giving ultimatums is controlling too.

OP bf has been highly irresponsible through not securing a means of contraception of his own. His dogs should not suffer as a result.

They sound an ill matched couple at best.

It's a perfectly natural reaction that many mothers experience. It's a basic biological drive to protect your baby from potential harm. Cats put their paws in their litter trays and then those same paws walk about the house so of course there are particular germs that cats spread about. Then there's the toxoplasma risk. No, we did not rehome the cats. It was just a feeling that I was aware of and unable to reason my way out of. If she already doesn't like the dogs, my point is, that will be worse once the baby arrives. No need to be nasty.

You're obviously of the opinion that animals other than humans are gross because their bodies do not develop or behave in the same way human bodies do. That is a level of ignorance someone such as me can never comprehend, so I will not argue. You do know there are certain animals who eat through their anus, and that an unwashed human also smells.

Animals are not gross - they are just different from us. It is a matter not of their inherent grossness or otherwise but of where they are.

It is precisely because their bodies and behaviours are different from ours that we need to be careful about how and where we interact with them.

Dogs do things that we do not do - because they are dogs. We do not bend down and sniff other animal's piss on lampposts; we do not sniff at dog shit; we do not sniff dogs' arses - clearly this is normal behaviour for dogs and just fine. Not a problem until we try and mould them into human companions and take them into human spaces where such behaviors become problematical.

Animals in human venues is the problem, not the animals themselves.

I am disturbed by the way that humankind dominates pets and forces them to conform to our lives, which is not natural for them. It is neither good for them nor good for us. Rules about where dogs can be are there for a reason - restaurants kitchens are the example given above. I would say that they should not be in the restaurants either, nor food shops.

a woman thinks she can just demand unreasonable things simply because she is pregnant, it reeks of entitlement.

I think it is entitlement of the highest order to suggest that a woman should destroy her embryo/foetus for the sake of a dog.

I am not in disagreement with you, albeit those subjects are of a different doctrine altogether!

Yeah, except I never said that. I said they should continue to live separately until it is convenient to live together.