Tips for a reluctant dog owner other than ‘don’t do it’?

[DisorganisedOrganiser]

Apologies for long OP. Trying not to drip feed.

So DH really wants a dog. Backstory is that I knew from when we first got together nearly 20 years ago that he wanted one. I agreed we would. We got a cat first (still have the cat who I adore) and now have two DC age 6 and 8.

I am part time, the kids are old enough and theoretically we could get one now. I have said that when DH is off then he needs to be responsible for the dog.

However, I am under no illusions. I know that it will be me doing the vast majority of the work. I don’t like dogs and I know also it will be harder then having another child.

I don’t find parenting or housekeeping (for want of a better word) easy and I know they having a dog will only make both of those things harder.

I’m not going to veto it. I knew when we met and when we married that one day I would have to get a dog. Looking back now I might have made different decisions but that is for another thread. I would never say he couldn’t get one. To me (just my opinion) it would be like one partner changing their mind on whether to have DC or how many to have. I would view that as an absolute dealbreaker and would never go back on such an arrangement. I don’t think changing your mind on that is acceptable (awful life events excepted).

So the point of my OP...

Any survival tips to get through it? How do I keep my marriage intact and my sanity? I feel he is unrealistic about the amount of work involved but at least I am realistic about how incredibly hard it is going to be.

I would want to get to the stage of liking the dog but am realistic that this may never happen. I would care for the dog, do the walks, the training etc. but am worried I would not love it.

DH and kids want a puppy. On the one hand I think that once the initial horror is done then in a couple of years at least you have a dog that has grown up with the kids and cat already there. Or is a rescue dog better but then what about behavioural problems?

@DisorganisedOrganiser
Honestly a dog is a toy. It's not there to fix your marriage. It's an animal that needs care and love and safety and vets bills and food and walking.
If your marriage won't come back from you not getting a dog you don't want then don't get it. It's not fair on the dog for one thing! Animals are a luxury not a necessity and aren't just for human amusement. If your husband isn't dedicated to having an animal he shouldn't have one and you shouldn't encourage it.

My parents would no way want a dog in their house but he thinks they would get used to it.

So it's not even here yet and he's already not respecting other people's boundaries RE his dog.

He seems to be a man who thinks a lot while knowing fuck all. He thinks people say it's hard are lying, he thinks he can make your parents get used to something they don't want, he thinks things just work out.

He knows nothing.

I’m stunned that so many people think it is perfectly acceptable to go back on a long-standing agreement

I'm equally stunned that your husband thinks people should be forced to make promises and stick to them without even knowing what's ahead.

If you started a thread and said the man you want to marry wants you to promise to have two children and a dog afterwards and that he'd expect you keep this promise and not go back on your word or he will divorce you'll be told to run for the hills because he's controlling.

Interesting he refuses to help out in a rescue shelter on his day off too. Would be perfect practice for you're going to manage and for him to see just what care a dog needs and I'm starting to think he knows damn well just how much work one needs but doesn't give a fuck cos he has no intention of being the one to make it happen.

Don't answer this but what is his temper like in general? It just seems like you are bending over backwards and making all the sacrifices compared to his thinking things are easy and it just happens and it kind of sounds like you're on eggshells to avoid saying no to him?

@DisorganisedOrganiser
You aren't teaching your kids that your a selfish cow. You are teaching them that women's opinions, jobs and free time are less important. I don't think that's an acceptable thing to teach children at all.

If you're determined to go through with this and get a dog then you need to look for ways to make yourself genuinely embrace it. Would you enjoy the training aspect and feel satisfaction as you see your dog developing good doggy manners? Would agility or scentwork, gun dog training and training your dog to go into schools or nursing homes be something you'd enjoy? Basically something whereby you could have a more positive relationship with the dog.

I think you should buy a couple of puppy/dog training books and read them through and get your H to read them through also. It might open both your eyes to the reality.

As an aside, when narrowing down breeds, avoid dogs that shed hugely, Golden Retrievers seems to be one of the worst offenders for this, since you are both house proud.

I do wonder why your H actually wants a dog though, given that he works long hours and won't actually be around to enjoy it. Surely it can't just be for the greeting when he walks through the door after work??

He would have one full day a week and most weekends to spend with the dog. He wants to run with it and walk it etc. So arguably half the week. He grew up with a dog and desperately misses having one around. I was the same with a cat and would have been devastated and incredibly annoyed if he turned around and said no. Something like borrow my doggy is just not the same and I completely get that.

I don’t think it’s controlling to decide on a set number of children and a dog. If it was the other way around and I was the one who had been adamant at kids and a dog and then my partner turned round after marriage and said actually we are not doing that I would be incredibly annoyed. You just don’t do that to someone. Not when you are already married and they have lost the chance to find someone else who would want the same things. I think the number of people who change their mind about numbers of children despite promising their partners the opposite is just awful. In the same way as if I only wanted 2 kids and he suddenly decided he wanted 3. That would also be unfair.

On the other hand I have had a sleepless night over this as I don’t know if I can actually do it now it comes to the crunch. I don’t want to bring it up at the moment though as we tentatively agreed not to discuss it for now and aim to get a dog in a year’s time. If I bring it up again it might push him into doing it sooner to prove it’s possible. If I leave it then it is the uncertainty of when it will happen.

If a golden retriever is great in other aspects then I could ignore the shedding side of things. It’s not that I am house proud so much that I can never get on top of the house and it is usually messy.

No, borrowmydoggy is not the same as having your own dot BUT if you borrow a dog for a weekend, 4 days, a week or whatever you can both see just how it impacts your life can't you?

Surely he would agree to that? If he loves dogs so much a chance of having one for a few days he should jump at. I know I would.

With borrowmydoggy you could have a few different dogs over a number of weeks/months so you can see just different dogs and how their needs, temperaments etc are different.

I’ve asked him loads of times about borrow my doggy, even as a prequel to getting a dog not as an alternative. He doesn’t want to, I’m not exactly sure why. I think maybe our cat, if we get a dog while we still have her it will be much easier for her to adjust to one dog than multiple different dogs in the house. BIL’s dog would work though as she knows him.

He knows what’s involved anyway; just thinks it’s easy. I think he would find caring for a dog easy. He likes running, long walks, being outside, does outdoor activities with the kids. It’s me who would find it hard.

He knows what’s involved anyway; just thinks it’s easy

Puppies aren't easy. Mind you, they're a lot easier when someone else is doing the work for you!

He knows what’s involved anyway; just thinks it’s easy.

I grew up with dogs, and often walked them. However, I have to say that since becoming a 'single mum' to DDog my experience of dog ownership has been very different. I adore him and wouldn't be without him but it's about 50x harder than growing up with a dog when someone else has ultimate responsibility for training and walking.

I've been known to say that I grew up with dogs and thought I knew something about them... I got PestDog and realised I knew sod all! It was a steep learning curve.

PestDog's previous owner did rather raise my eyebrows when he admitted that he'd worked on a farm and the farm dogs there pretty much spent the day mooching around the yard and weren't walked in the traditional sense. He had thought that keeping a dog in a London flat would be the same

He may not want to do Borrow My Doggy but I'd insist as a prerequisite to getting a dog. You may have agreed to get a dog in about 1999 but I bet you didn't agree to get one without prior research etc.

"I think the number of people who change their mind about numbers of children despite promising their partners the opposite is just awful. In the same way as if I only wanted 2 kids and he suddenly decided he wanted 3. That would also be unfair."

You are infuriatingly rigid in your thinking. None of us really know what it's like to have a child until we have one. Then it's perfectly conceivable that you might change your mind about more. They might be harder or easier than expected. A child or parent might develop a disability or health issue.

People can change their minds about something as important as children, let alone pets!

People can change their minds about something as important as children, let alone pets! Exactly!

There is an air of claustrophobia to your posts OP which makes me think that you are fundamentally deeply unhappy. Everything you say is about sacrifice and upholding commitments even when it comes at a cost to you. This is some surrendered wife shit right here. Marriage does take some work sometimes but it isn’t meant to be a masochistic painfest. The general impression is that you’ve taken a wrong turning at some point in your life and are absolutely resistant to trying to find your way back on track, instead persisting on ploughing ahead in a saintly martyred fashion. There is no way that some of this vibe isn’t getting through to your family, I’m afraid. Being raised by someone who is at the root deeply and fundamentally unhappy and unfulfilled is so very very damaging for a child. I beg you to reconsider your approach to your life and your marriage.

It’s not just one decision I made 20 years ago. It’s the fact that for the last 20 years or so I have agreed we would get the dog. If I was going to back out it should have been years and years ago. Or at least after DC1 when I realised what parenting was actually like.

This could well end the marriage or make it extremely difficult and then everyone would be miserable. This way it is just me. My kids don’t know how much I don’t want a dog. Marriage is for life otherwise making those vows is absolutely pointless. I can hardly get a time machine and without marriage I wouldn’t have my kids. We used to be great together.

But now you’re not. And you want to make it worse. Daft.

I'm a bit gobsmacked by "my parents would in no way want a dog in their house but he thinks they would get used to it".
I don't think I'm unusual in my unwillingness to inflict my dog on anyone's home, even for a quarter of an hour, unless they actively and enthusiastically want him there. In fact, the only home I've brought him into is that of my dog-nut dad.

I'm finding it hard to understand (a) that your husband could be so utterly disrespectful of other people's boundaries regarding their own home and (b) that you are being so accommodating of him despite this insensitivity to others' needs.

Earlier in the thread this situation just seemed like a run-of-the-mill conflict of preferences, but now it seems slightly weird.
There seems to be almost a kind of folie a deux between you -- his blithe disregard for real restrictions seems matched by your commitment to facilitating that disregard.

He can't have a dog until and unless his life circumstances allow him to take care of it. This isn't a question of you preventing/vetoing/forbidding a dog -- if he wants a dog that is his business. But it is his responsibility not yours. And there isn't much comparability with your having a cat. Presumably the existence of the cat doesn't require him to do anything much at all. Cats are a way less demanding presence in the house than dogs.

I keep starting posts to reassure you that owning a dog isn't actually a living hell, then deleting them and starting another questioning whether this isn't about the fricking dog at all but about your own negative perception of your value as a part-time SAHM, and maybe your DH's casual railroading of everyone else.

I genuinely don't know which advice you're subconsciously asking for. But if you're sure your marriage would collapse if you told your DH that, due to all your other commitments, none of which you fully understood when you gave your original agreement, the dog would have to wait for a few more years until he could play more of a role in its care... then the dog is a red herring. And no, that is not a new hypoallergenic breed.

His working patterns mean he can’t do all the care for a dog. What we should have done is years ago arranged for me to be full time and him part time. We didn’t do that. I wanted to be part time for the kids. So the downside of that is it is my responsibility to sort the dog. One of us will lose in this. It is totally unfair to say he can’t have the dog when it is the fact that I am part time and dependent on his salary that means he can’t reduce his hours. It’s not like he is saying he wants to still be full time.

I wanted to be part time for the kids. So the downside of that is it is my responsibility to sort the dog

No, the downside of that - as is logical - is that more responsibility falls to you re the kids. Surely?

You know what? Go ahead. Get a dog and be unhappy. Because that's clearly what you signed up for even though you were clueless at the time about the wifework, childcare commitments and the fact you would be looking after the damn thing. If you had a time machine, is that what you would tell your younger self?

You are allowed to say no. Or at least, wait until the kids are older and he has the time to devote to it. I am astonished that he won't try borrow my doggy or BiLs dog.

Myself and my partner have discussed getting a dog a lot. We both grew up with them, we both adore them. Like you, it's a busy household with two kids, two cats and I work from home part time. DH works very close by. It sounds close to ideal, but we still decided not to: just because the kids are young, its full-on and we are aware of the cost and commitment required. It's ok to say that circumstances change.

Ok last post. If I could do back and see my younger self I’d say don’t get married to a dog lover. Discuss life plans in more detail first and split up as we are obviously incompatible. Don’t promise to get a dog.

But obviously I don’t have a time machine and I have two awesome kids from it who adore their dad. Plus I did promise. And no, it’s really really not ok to change your mind on stuff like that.

He won’t want borrow my doggy etc. It will be our own dog or nothing.

Surely the mistake you are making is that you are already making the dog your responsiblity. I would be interested to know how much research your DH has done?

You are spending ages looking at everything and pointing out all the negative to him. I find in these situations it's better to state facts in response to him starting the conversation. Then you just SHUT UP! Let him do the talking, ask HIM how he is going to manage the walking/training/feeding/insurance. Ask him questions, make him do the thinking.

It's really very simple however looking at your posts you are being very 'oh poor me I'm getting lumbered with this, I'll have to do everything'. You are enabling his behaviour, just let him take the lead but make it clear, in a firm way that this dog will not affect your current commitments and stop anything you or the children currently do.

If you don't do this OP you are signing up for approximately 16 years of looking after and being responsible for something you don't want. You are actively choosing this option, however you try and dress it up.

I know you said it was your last post but I really don't get this 'I promised'. OK you said you would however HE wants the dog, let him get one and do all the stuff that goes along with it! It's really very simple!

Shouldn’t have said last post.

He hasn’t researched as he knows he wants a spaniel.

I cannot possibly just ignore the dog. If we get it, I am in the house with it and then the kids have eg swimming lessons after school where I will need to be out of the house for 4 hours but the dog can’t be left what am I going to do. Just go out and leave the dog barking, crying, pooing in the house ? Neighbours would quite rightly call the rspca if I did that regularly. Of course it will affect my current commitments as I will have to either accommodate the dog or take the dog with me.

He won’t want borrow my doggy etc. It will be our own dog or nothing.

Then it’s nothing, end of conversation

Discuss life plans in more detail first and split up as we are obviously incompatible. Don’t promise to get a dog
But even if you do discuss life plans in detail,you are still allowed to change your mind and it's TOTALLY normal to do so.

He won’t want borrow my doggy etc. It will be our own dog or nothing

Then it would be nothing.