DP’s dog causing issues. Need advice.

[ella89]

I have temporarily moved in with my fiancé before we move nearer my family after the wedding. At the moment he lives in a first floor flat with his dog and cat. He is out of the house working every weekday from 7am to 6pm while I work from home.

He has a 7 year old male dog (pinscher cross) and his behaviour is causing issues.

He wasn’t toilet trained when I got together with DP and we have now trained him. The issue is that the dog misbehaves a lot when DP is out. They are very bonded and the dog jumps up at me, barks, scratches me, tries to nip, chews the sofa, jumps on top of the cat and this is usually because he wants to be let on to the balcony. He also tries to eat my food and bothers me at lunchtime. DP encourages him to be crazy when he comes home and often plays boisterous games. The cat is often stressed by this so I don’t like it.

I think routine is important so I take the dog for short walks twice a day when DP is at work but he still behaves in this way. I had a big argument with DP today because I tried to discuss the problem and he just said things like:

’He never behaves like this when I’m there’

‘My mum never has this problem with him when she pops in to take him outside.’

‘You need to be more harsh with him when he misbehaves’

‘If you can’t cope with the dog, how will you cope in the future with a baby?’

‘This is going to be a problem for us living together because he doesn’t respect you’

I feel like he’s blaming me when really he should have trained him from when he was a puppy. I said this to him and he said ‘well next time you can train the dog’.

I grew up with dogs and none of them ever acted like this so it’s not that I dislike dogs. I like all animals. But I feel upset because it’s like I am irritating DP when I try to sort it out. He literally said ‘well what do you want me to do about it when I’m at work?’ He accused me of wanting rid of him when I really don’t.

Does anyone have advice about how to improve the situation?

This is proving that you don’t know someone until you live with them. As others have said the problem is not with the dog but with DP. He has not looked after that poor dog very well at all and I also feel sorry for the poor cat!

He is not respecting you or your feelings and “turning cold on you” is a red flag.

Hi OP,
I'm sorry you've had such judgemental answers here but very little actual help for dealing with the situation. Dumping your partner for this is like using a sledge hammer to crack a nut, and not really an immediate or easy solution

Would your partner be willing to pay for a few lessons with a dog trainer/ behaviourist for you?

The vets will have a list of the ones they recommend who can come to your flat and help you know how to deal with unwanted behaviours. Positive reinforcement or clicker training will help, as will buying him toys or chews that will keep him occupied while you're working. He sounds like a high energy dog and wearing their brains out is just as important as their bodies. You need some support with this bc it sounds like your confidence is very low.
Try to your partner that you cannot get any work done with the distraction his dog is causing, and your lowered performance bc of it will be noticed by your boss?.

You do need to be more confident with your dealings with the dog, for sure. Any time he misbehaves he should know it's unwanted behavior, bc at the moment he's running rings round you and he knows it!

Not easy, I'm sorry you're going through this.

Are you suggesting the Op should dump her finance bc of that one remark?
That's it is it, pack your bags and go?

This!!

If not then after reading the rest of the thread

Anyone who treats an animal this way is not husband or father material

@EvenleyWitch Thanks for your reply. Yes DP has suggested working with a dog trainer to improve these problems. We spoke about it at length yesterday and he acknowledges there is a problem. The dog has a habit of jumping up in excitement or when he is demanding something and this is when the nipping happens. We have been reading about how to fix this and plan to turn our backs on him when he does this to show it’s unwanted behaviour. DP has also set alarms throughout the day to take him out for toilet breaks. It is a start.

This thread has been difficult for me to read, especially the people who say things like ‘poor future kids’. There is no need to feel sorry for any future kids because they would have a very good life in any event. And DP is starting to address the dog’s needs. He’s an inexperienced dog owner and unfortunately this has been reflected in what’s happened. It’s easy to judge someone harshly when you don’t know them and have only heard a negative piece of information about them. Nobody is perfect and there are many relationships out there where people live for years and don’t bring their issues out into the open. I am trying to deal with this.

OP he has accepted there is a problem with the dog's behaviour - FINALLY-

But he has not so far as I can see, accepted there is a problem with the way he tried to dismiss your concerns to begin with, then blame you, then suggest you would be an unsatisfactory parent.

Has he apologised and explained how he went wrong, so he can be counted on to treat you better in future?

Well he's putting changes in place so I'd give him a month or so to see if he sticks to them.
Better late than never.

Good luck, OP. I hope it all works out. Did you have the nerve to raise the issue of his childish attacks on you for raising the subject of his self chosen incompetence as a pet owner? He has been incompetent and neglectful for 7 years! He isn’t a novice. He didn’t see a problem and when you raised it he got swamped with anger and was quite spiteful.

I would want to know that he is aware of how badly he handles simple disagreement and how he plans to learn to do better.

at the moment he lives in a first floor flat with his dog and cat. He is out of the house working every weekday from 7am to 6pm while I work from home.

So before you moved in, who walked the dog during the day? Does your bf expect you to do this now?

Tbh his attitude towards you/the dog is shit. He's not accepting responsibility for the dog's bad behaviour.

Are you prepared to come second to a dog forever?!

The dog has been neglected and that is the result. He is a poor dog and owner and is now refusing to take responsibility for the dog. If you want to stay with this man, the dog, which is clearly bored out of its brain, needs to be taken out for long walks by a paid person and be properly trained.

@candycane222 @pikkumyy77 I’m staying with my family now so we haven’t talked a lot about his behaviour. In the brief conversation we had, he said he didn’t meant to blame me and that he loves me. I honestly think things are a mess in his daily life at the moment. He unexpectedly lost his job in the summer and has started a new job with a 2 hour commute each day. He’s tired and stressed and I think the dog issue and me complaining about it was the last straw. We are going to move near the end of the year when his contract ends to a better area with more family support so I think this will help. I’ve told him I was unhappy with how he handled the disagreement and I want to sort out how we communicate before we marry. I mentioned moving the wedding back a year and this seems to have made him think about things.

@hellsBells246 Nobody walked the dog during the day. His mum would sometimes come to walk him around the communal garden to do his business. He doesn’t expect me to walk the dog, at least he hasn’t said that. But I do it for the dog’s sake. Obviously things need to change because the poor thing is bored and alone all day.

Im glad you left the flat after this happened. But I do note that you are still making excuses for him (his stress etc). None of this actually helps your situation unless he acknowledges responsibility for his treatment of you (and ddog), accepts it eas wrong, and demonstrates how he is adressing the issue so he stops blaming you for his actions. It is such a slippery slope to be on at the start of a lifetime relationship. It is something DH and I had out early doors, before we married, and it has really helped that we both explicitly accepted that this would be a relationship killer and that we should act like adults and own our own shit.

Been married 30-odd years and it's still a conversation Im so glad we had, and a promise to each other that we have pretty much kept.

@candycane222 How did you bring up this conversation with your DH in a constructive way? I want to discuss this sort of thing with my DP but he can be quite defensive.

How old is the dog? I get the impression it's too old to train but young enough to live a good few more years and it really doesn't sound like it would be safe to have a baby/toddler around it. I feel so sorry for the poor cat as well 😢I couldn't be with someone who didn't take good care of animals. Forget the grand gestures like the ring, the holiday, and flying out to join you on your business trip - look at how he behaves in ordinary day to day life, because that's what you'll be living with.

I think luckily for us it was something we both noticed very early on, in the "madly in love" phaae so we could tease ech other about it and discuss it with humour. But we recognised it was going to be important , (along with supporting each others careers and really trying to listen to each others' point of view even qhen it seemed unreasonable!)

My dh is still prone to annoying defensiveness and blame shifting (and i am probably not entirely innocent myself) - and I still tease him about it. He pulls a face but he is able admit mistakes and apologise when its important to me.

That’s the problem! Its not any one fact or issue its that his personal history leads him to blow a cloud of squid ink like accusations at you whenever he feels anxious/feels blame.

He has to take responsibility for handling his own shit. Thats the long snd short of it. Watch Brene Brown’s little youtubes, read books about this behavior , but if he doesn’t have the grace and self awareness to know what he is doing is a problem then he won’t fix the behavior.

Has there been any discussion of what happens if there is a new baby in this dogs lifetime? Neither of you could possibly think it would be a safe situation?

@pictoosh that’s the issue with a lot of dog owners now, they just have to have one NOW. Instant gratification with no thought to the next 10-15 year commitment and all of the things that come with that

The man didn’t bother to house train his dog. And left him home alone all day until you got there. He expects you to change to his ‘right’ way, and insults you when you don’t want to. He sounds great.

at the moment he lives in a first floor flat with his dog and cat. He is out of the house working every weekday from 7am to 6pm while I work from home.

I just read this and your subsequent post where you confirmed nobody used to walk the dog in the day.

It's disgusting he used to leave the dog alone in a flat for 11 hours a day. Genuinely awful. Cruel, even.

Well everything went to shit after he got this new job. The old job was close to home so he would come back at lunchtime around 1pm and walk the dog in his lunch hour so he wasn’t alone for hours. It’s the last few months it’s been like this because he can’t come home any more. So it’s not as cruel as it sounds because this is a recent thing.

DP now says he isn’t happy with a dog walker because he says it’s not secure to give a stranger a key to your home. But he’s happy to hire a trainer.

We had an argument before I left because he was making comments that were unfair. I told him the dog needs to go out to pee first thing and I suggested taking him about at 6 when he gets up. He said ‘it’s ok for you to say that from your comfy bed’.
I said ‘I didn’t choose to have a dog.’
He said ‘well neither did I.’

I am perplexed that he thinks that just because he found this dog abandoned that he had to keep him. He rehomed all of the siblings that were with him so it doesn’t make sense. I am not starting to think he is trolling me by saying stupid things like this.

Anyway I am doing a lot of thinking this week.

it’s not as cruel as it sounds because this is a recent thing. Yes it is. It’s been months, and he could get a walker, sitter, day care and he’s chosen not to. What was his long term plan if you didn’t move in?What’s the excuse for not training it?

I told him the dog needs to go out to pee first thing
surely it’s quite unattractive to have to tell a grown man how to do quite basic things for another creatures welfare? That dog relies on him, he chose to have it, and he’s letting it down massively and now expecting you to sort it.

I said ‘I didn’t choose to have a dog.’
He said ‘well neither did I.’
will he say that if you have children and you expect him to do a bit and not leave it all to you?

All of this.

OP he just fundamentally sounds selfish, defensive and at least a bit unkind.

Are they attributes you want to tolerate in a life partner?