Husband does not want to take in my dogs.

[HelloKat]

I have two yappy small dogs whom my parents helped looked after for 3 years while i was renting in the city. During those years, my bf and I got married and we're just about to buy a house together. I want to bring my dogs with us to our new home but he is completely against it and is insisting that my parents should continue looking after them. He always knew the dogs were mine and we have often lived with them but as our accommodation for most of the 3 years didnt allow pets, he never had an issue. My husband is threatening to leave me if I bring my dogs with us to our new home. He says that I'm picking them over our relationship and that I should just put them up to adoption. My problem is that I love my dogs and I cant bare the thought of putting them up for adoption and my parent can no longer help look after them. Please help. Really need advice.

Its funny how on here men are not allowed to have "dealbreakers" but women are?. I wouldnt want to live with 2 fucking yappy dogs either...massive responsibility.

He knew they used to be yours but he probably thought you had given them to your parents!. Did you ever explicitly say to him...im going to take the dogs back when i buy a house before you married him?.

This marriage may not make it and it eould not really be his fault. You would be resentful to give up your dogs and he would be resentful to live with 2 dogs he didnt want.

This won’t be a popular view but the dogs haven’t lived with you for 3 years so if I was him I’d not really think of them as your dogs and unless it was explicitly laid out to me I’d not realise you wanted them to live with you again.
There’s no way I’d want to have dogs in the same house as me so it would be a deal breaker for me. So I’d leave if you brought dogs into the house.
Sounds like a communication problem and ultimately you’re not compatible

The OP is a terrible, selfish owner. She says she loves the dogs but she didn’t train them to stop yapping, and she gave them to her parents to look after. In the time they have been with her parents, has she been round daily to walk them and interact with them? Has she bought all their food and paid all their vet bills? Has she done anything to make them happy, as opposed to assuming that their function is to make her happy?

Have you been paying all the insurance/vet bills for them both up to now, any kennel fees for when you're away?
Pets are an expensive commodity.

@HaveANiceFuckingDay

I don’t like dogs . BUT. I got one because my husband grew up with dogs and itwasa compromise . I still dont like it I very reluctantly take it for walks because it needs to be walked and hardly anyone in this house takes it for a walks I’m lumbered That’s as far as my parenting of the fucking thing goes If he doesn’t like dogs he doesn’t like dogs and having one around won’t change his mind If anything it reenforces the fact I hate dogs even more Now I have one . Yet my husband treats the thing like another child , petting it , laughing at it , talking to it like a baby , it’s 2 next month , we have many more years of the thing I really wouldn’t have got it knowing then what I know now The dog hair, the shit in the garden , the neediness , it’s like having another child honestly Listen to him . He won’t change his mind . If he’s not a dog person he isn’t a dog person and will treat it like it doesn’t exist or rather he wish it didn’t exist. I can’t stand animals. Some people are not animal people

Oh, man, am I with you on this. Well, most of it. I love cats. I do not like dogs. We have one. Because my husband grew up with them and it was his absolute dream to have one.

It stinks, no matter how much grooming. Just this persistent wet doggy sort of smell. It's always in my face. So much hair and mud everywhere. The whining. The shitting. The drooling. The barking. The food stealing, no matter how much training. And I've got another seven or so years of this. German shepherd that's currently three. Everyone told me that I would fall head over heels and she'd be my baby.

I loathe when people anthropomorphise their dogs. No, they aren't little people. They aren't babies. No they don't have a developed moral conscience. They're animals with a prey drive and an instinct to dominate and you have to spend a decade or more trying to stay on top of that.

If our dog yapped, it would have been a "me or the dog" situation, and if my husband had chosen the dog, I hope he'd have been happy in his bedsit with his yapping, thieving, stinking shit machine.

Not everyone who doesn't like dogs is a soulless zombie who needs to live alone.

Clymene
“Dogs over men. Every time”

Except OP has already dumped the dogs with her parents for 3 years so she can shack up with the man, so she clearly doesn’t share your sentiment on this…

I'm a bit stuck here. If you're not into dogs, the prospect of spending potentially several years with two yappy dogs who would also leave dog hairs around the place, may well jump up at you, may well make a smell, is pretty hellish. You also have the nuisance of having to have somewhere to leave them when you're away, thinking about whether your visitors are OK with them, vet bills, and possibly having to walk them if their owner is ill or anything.

But on the other hand if I were in your husband's place I wouldn't want to cause pain to someone I loved enough to marry them. But I would resent the fact that this had been sprung on me without prior warning. Are you sure your parents can't keep them any longer? At their age it's not necessarily kind to disrupt them anyway.

I agree with your DH, however, I wouldn't threaten divorce etc over it. If I were him I'd just denounce all responsibility related to the dogs I.e, you do all walks, all feeding times, all vet runs and bills. Anything to do with those dogs is your responsibility and not his, that's the deal if you wanna keep them.
I love dogs personally but yappy ones, absolutely not.

Sounds like you have a huge communication issue, why would he assume the dogs are coming with you? That's quite a leap for 2 dogs who lived with your parents.

As an aside, I can't believe how rude some of you are on here about people who don't like dogs

Tell him to bugger off.

We have a 9 year old rescue dog that we've had for 6 years. She's very attached to me. Last year my husband told me that he's fed up with her, finds her boring, and dog ownership isn't what he thought it would be. He said I had to choose between him or the dog and if I chose the dog he'd be leaving. I told him that if he truly loved me he wouldn't put me in that position, as he knows how I feel about people who give up their dogs. After a few days he asked if I'd made my decision. I said, i stand by what I said the other day and you know where the door is. He was visibly shocked but he never left. We've spoken about it since and he said that he realises that our dog won't live for ever and he'll just have to live with her for my sake.

@HelloKat

My dogs can be yappy but they are really sweet. I have told him that I will be happy to do all the looking after by myself and won't expect him to help out at all. But he just doesnt want them.

Not sure what to do as I feel like im stuck btw a rock and a hard place. At the end of the day, my dogs are my responsibility and I love them and want to take care of them. They're quite senior now (both 11yrs old) and it just breaks my heart thinking about having to give them up. I dont take marriage lightly and wouldnt want a divorce either. How can I persuade him in taking in my dogs?

Would the dogs cope with being rehomed after three years? If they've been at your parents for that long, I too would assume it was a permanent thing.

Really you should've rented somewhere sooner, that allowed pets. If it wasn't for your parents, you'd have had to put them into a rescue three years ago anyway.

I kinda see your husbands point - I wouldn't want two annoying yappy dogs either.

How about compromise....you have them at weekends to see how they fit/gel?

Would your parents keep them forevermore if you didn't have them back?

@noblegreenk

The OP did give up her dogs, though.

noblegreenk

I’m pleased you chose the dog.

Do you not think less of your husband though for even saying those things? I couldn’t forgive my partner for that.

The OP did give up her dogs, though.

She was renting and it can be almost impossible to find places that will rent to you if you have pets. She didn’t give them up, her parents helped her out temporarily. OP even says her and her husband lived with the dogs at times throughout the 3 years. Now she has a suitable home, they will obviously live with her as they are her dogs.

She was renting and it can be almost impossible to find places that will rent to you if you have pets.

Exactly. She was irresponsible and selfish. She shouldn’t have had dogs if she wasn’t able to look after them and house them.

Exactly. She was irresponsible and selfish. She shouldn’t have had dogs if she wasn’t able to look after them and house them.

Her circumstances obviously changed. And unlike many people on here who dump their dogs at a rescue or sell them online, she didn’t. She arranged for them to be looked after by family who they would be familiar with. Hardly irresponsible.

We had a dog for six days. I have never felt such a visceral hatred of anything. The biting, the jumping, the howling, the almost immediately stench, the accidents, the trekking out to pick up poo in the snow, the destruction of any abandoned toy/sock/shoe, the crying at night and sleeping on sofa necessary to keep her calm, the early morning wake ups. The whole experience was beyond awful...I felt like if been invaded. And I wanted the dog! I'd researched, read up, contacted numerous breeders, waited six months. And I like other people's dogs! But my god, the relief that I could hand it back to the breeder and get my life back. (It was re-homed to someone on the waiting list immediately). That was a poodle...and yes, yappy was the word. So in short, I'm with him. Dogs aren't like cats, they dominate a household. You should have discussed this properly....but I wouldn't give up a happy marriage for dogs you haven't even bothered with for the past three years.

Does that mean he'll never want dogs? Being a doggy person I couldn't be in a relationship with someone who thought that. Hmmm. Also, you love them, he thinks the doggy smell is more important than your love.
Naff off, husband.

I'd researched, read up

Clearly not. All the things you describe are typical puppy behaviour...what on earth did you read and research if you didn’t find that out?

@GirlWithAGuitar

Exactly. She was irresponsible and selfish. She shouldn’t have had dogs if she wasn’t able to look after them and house them.

Her circumstances obviously changed. And unlike many people on here who dump their dogs at a rescue or sell them online, she didn’t. She arranged for them to be looked after by family who they would be familiar with. Hardly irresponsible.

Housing them for a short while with other people is OK, but three years? For dogs that she claims she loves so much and over which she would end her relationship? Dogs which she couldn’t be bothered to train? Absolute bollocks.

Housing them for a short while with other people is OK, but three years? For dogs that she claims she loves so much and over which she would end her relationship? Dogs which she couldn’t be bothered to train? Absolute bollocks.

I work for a rescue, I know what irresponsible owners are and on the details we have here, this isn’t it. It’s far better for dogs to go to someone they know temporarily, even if that’s 3 years, still seeing their owners than to go into a rescue centre, through the trauma of never seeing their owner again and having to live with a new family. We have dogs who have taken over 12 months to be able to be rehomed as they are so withdrawn after being dumped.

As for the dogs being untrained. Yappy? We have trainers working with out dogs, some of the most well trained dogs will still be yappy.

@GirlWithAGuitar yes true. But reading about being bitten is very different to being woken up by a yappy dog jumping up and biting your face at 3am. And realising that dog ownership is voluntary and that you'd rather not put up with it. I was wrong to get a dog and never would again. And I totally understand now why someone would say a hard no time having one in their home.

@GirlWithAGuitar

noblegreenk

I’m pleased you chose the dog.

Do you not think less of your husband though for even saying those things? I couldn’t forgive my partner for that.

Yes I do think less of him. I thought he was a better man than that. I was very resentful of him for quite some time afterwards. I've had to do my very best to move past it though, as we have a 3yr old child and he's a very good dad and partner in many other ways.

As soon as you said ‘small yappy dogs’ I sided with your DH.