Negatives of having a dog

[Sleepdeprived42long]

So, we are considering getting a dog to join our family which is currently me, DH, DS11 and DS9. I’ve had cats my whole life but not dogs. DH and DS11 are most keen but I’m definitely not against the idea!

We’ve had some bad luck with pets in the past so I really want us to make this decision with our eyes open not just to the positives (which we know) but also the negatives.

Just by way of background-if we did go with a dog, would probably dog like cockapoo/cavapoo or similar. We both WFH and enjoy family walks-we don’t see this changing in the next few years. We do sometimes go out for whole days at the weekend (although normally to the beach or similar) and go on holiday quite a lot (4-5 times a year for at least 2-3 nights but sometimes up to 10 nights). We could afford a dog but would have to make sacrifices on other luxuries (possibly a holiday or two!). My mental health isn’t great-I struggle with anxiety and depression at times.

So, for those of you who have dogs, can you tell me your honest negatives of dog ownership?

Thanks everyone for your replies. We will definitely need to consider everything that has been said and I genuinely appreciate the time everyone has taken to respond.

You would have preferred to see your mother's quality of life suffer even more with the permanent stress of a constantly crying dog tying her to the house than to rehome the animal to a more suitable environment?

Are you one of those 'I prefer dogs to people' individuals?

@nolamesallowed I think that’s a bit unkind. Tweens are not well known for their emotional maturity so I can understand why @cherrylola felt the way they did at that age. I am grateful for @cherrylola for sharing their experience because I have children who may be affected the same way if the same situation arose so I need to take that into account.

Dog lover so see few negatives to be honest but they do tie you down, so if you like to holiday can you afford to have them boarded or will you take them with you? (If you take them, remember you have to find dog friendly places and you may not be able to do all the things you’d normally like to).
They can be very expensive, especially if they develop any health issues.
Although the cutest, the puppy stage can be like having a baby. They need a lot of love and attention and training, it needs consistency and patience which can be difficult even when working from home. At least for a while they are likely to pee/poop on your carpets, chew things they shouldn’t, and not like being away from you. All trainable of course but it can feel very overwhelming at times.

Having said all that, I wouldn’t like to be without my dog and they are great for mental health and exercise

There are negatives?

• Wet dogs in winter. Mud gets everywhere and they smell.

• Potential for your house to smell doggy but you go nose blind so don't notice it anymore

• Boarding kennels while you go on holiday are very expensive. They can also spread illness to your dog.

• Insurance costs

• Pet food is not cheap

• If you get a doodle cross there will be grooming fees to pay. This is not cheap.

• Dogs can live for a long time. It's a long term commitment.

• Dog hair everywhere. You'll need to hoover daily, sometimes twice.

• If you go out for the day, will they be OK at home. Means clock watching constantly.

There are obviously positives. I've just listed rhe negatives I could think of.

Bad points
Hair everywhere. If you're OK with being covered in hair, that's fine, but it drives me I sane.
Smell. We bath our dogs every month or so but they still smell a bit
Barking. Most dogs bark. Mine bark alot now they are older and it's so annoying, especially if I've just got the baby to sleep
Wee, poo and sick in the house. Not too much but now and again they do it if we are in or not

Things to think about. We look after our dogs very well, want for nothing, BUT we wouldn't get one again. Mine are 14 and 10 and they do tie you down.

Have two so that leaving them is easier, install a dog flap to garden and try and teach the buggers to use it. Have a small low energy older rescue breed so they can cope with half an hour walk a day and none of the weather is awful. Have a cleaner and put the dogs in the shower so your house doesn’t smell, have deep pockets to pay for endless vet bills for small lazy old codgers.
in all seriousness the worst bit is dealing with incontinence and illness and having to put them down.

You say that your husband and son are the ones keenest to get a dog, but realistically the parents are the ones who will do most of the work, and particularly the parent who tends to take care of most of the domestic stuff anyway. I know quite a few women who spend their lives cleaning up after a dog that their husband and son begged for. You need to be sure that you are sufficiently keen on a dog that you will definitely find dog ownership worthwhile.

Positives outweigh the negatives for us and we definitely wouldn't be without our furry family member.

Cons for me
•The fur! We have a lab x collie and 5 minutes after I hoover its everywhere again, even with regular grooming and brushing he moults constantly we don't allow him on furniture though so it is just floors/his bedding that gets extremely furry
•Pet insurance, ours is 4 1/2 and we have never claimed (touch wood) and the insurance is a small fortune each month and goes up considerably each year even without claims
•Holiday/pet sitting, getting a professional dog boarder to watch him while we are away is a small fortune. £2/300 per holiday.

But we love him very much and could never imagine not having him.

No fucking holidays abroad. We can't leave our dog in a kennels as he's a sensitive soul and I don't trust people in our house. My mum has had him and DD a few times but it's a hassle. She has offered to have him for a holiday but again a hassle. We take him with us to UK destinations and haven't done euro camps as we said we would.

He is a lazy shit and won't walk in the rain but if he was a normal dog I'd be pissed off at all the walking.

@TheFlis12345 This! I have 2 friends who got puppies from a very reputable breeder & both are reactive/don't settle at other people's houses/don't travel well & definitely can't be taken to a pub beer garden or dog-friendly cafe. True, one is a Doberman & one is a Rottweiler but it's still something to consider. People often assume only rescue dogs will be anxious or reactive but that just isn't always the case. For reference, the friend with the Rotti is a head vet nurse & her mum is a vet nurse/behaviouralist/dog trainer & it normally takes them both to walk the dog twice a day as she's so strong & reacts v badly to other dogs & now they don't let her off the lead at all & have to walk in isolated places. She's lovely at home but my friend has said walking her can be v stressful. They've had a black lab before & another rescue Rotti & this current dog is the hardest dog they've ever owned. If you get a puppy you can't always predict what the adult dog will be like.

I would also say OP that cockerpoo breeds are v high energy dogs & can get bored easily/destructive. They shouldn't smell & shouldn't shed (if you get one with the correct % of poodle!) & are v cute & teddy bear ish but you'll need to spend a small fortune at the groomers every 6-8 wks. I've met a LOT of cockerpoos while I'm out dog walking & they are often owned by older people who don't bother to train them properly but always let them off the lead 🙄 They aren't always very nice to other dogs either. If you both WFH FT be aware the puppy will be bored & will need entertaining/walking/cuddling a lot when it's small. & might whine/bark while you are on Zoom meetings etc. I would never get a dog either just because my son was nagging me for one. He is 15 & I know he'd be useless now if we did have our own dog. He's in bed half the morning during hols & I would end up walking it anyway. My friend with the Doberman (who is now 10) has only been abroad once with her kids in all those years (& her hubby stayed behind to dog sit). They are such a tie & I'm fed up of hearing dogs around where I live barking & howling in gardens at 6 am & midnight & when their owners go out for the night & leave their dogs outside/using dog flaps!

I’ve had pets all my life. I have a Lhasa Apso/Shih Tzu. He’s a mummy’s boy. Can’t go out without him. Can’t go to the bathroom without him. Whines if left at home. My partner has autism and he drives him nuts with his whining. He’s scared of flies and loud noises. We got him for two reasons 1 so my partner would go out walking him (dog ignores him completely) and 2 so our daughter could grow up with him (he was 18 months old and she was 3) then she would experience loss when he died (unfortunately her grandad,my father died last year) he’s now my responsibility. I feed him, walk him, comfort him. I love him with all my heart but he does tie us all down. Dog friendly holidays aren’t as easy to get as normal holidays. I can’t go out on hot days because I can’t have him in the car or leave him with my partner. None of this was known when we go him (rescue). Think long and hard

None!!!!! Love, love, love my wee furry bestie. And dogs and kids are an unbeatable combination. (And before anyone says it, yes I know they don't live as long as us but I don't want to think about that)! Get a dog!!

It’s good that most the negatives on here are the same:

1. costs (insurance, food, grooming, kennels, doggy day care etc)

2. time restrictions (going away, going out for the day somewhere not dog friendly etc)

so if you have a spare £100 a month, work from home, and have a relative who’ll have dog when you go away or pop in to do a walk if you want to go to a theme park or something for a long day out that’s not dog friendly, then these negatives will be easy to work round for you.

Find the right breed, put in the effort for training, and the rest should be ok.

@Jellybubbamama0987 I can't imagine not being able to leave the dog with my partner autistic or not.

@Stomacharmeleon yeah, ideally, you'd want to be able to but a) not everybody has a partner, and b) not all behavioural issues are know before you get a dog- human and canine. A whining dog would be absolute torture for lots of people, including some with hyperacusis or any other sensory issues. One of my kids would be very distressed by having to stay with an animal that was obviously anxious and distressed - despite stereotypes of non-NT people being blind to others' feelings, this is thoroughly debunked now.

@Jellybubbamama0987 I feel there needs to be a mumsnet thread for holiday dog-shares. Mine is very amenable to being left pretty much anywhere with a secure garden, but it's the cost that's prohibitive for me, it's another £400 on top a week's holiday for me, where I live.

There are no negatives…. My dog is the love of my life! Whole family adores her!

@Radiodread that’s part of my point, summer holidays are more expensive on their own now add in the fact you have a dog, it’s a nightmare. I’d put him in boarding but I dread to think how he’d emotionally be when I got him back plus he could end up with kennel cough like a lot of dogs I’ve heard get when boarding. I couldn’t do that to him
@Stomacharmeleon if you’re not neurodivergent you won’t be able to understand, I don’t really understand it but it just sets him on edge and it’s not fair on him. Like Radiodread said not all behavioural issues are known before you get the dog, they all have different personalities and sometimes something can happen to them that wouldn’t phase another dog and you end up with a traumatised dog. You wouldn’t be saying the same about a child who gets traumatised would you? Mine hates loud noises and flies, now with him being rescued and 18 months old when I got him, I don’t know what happened. I’m trying to give him a good life and if that means making concessions about both of their mental health I’ll do it.

I mean look at this face. Who would give him the world?

The holiday issue is the only real negative for us. And the main thing with that is just finding places to stay in the first place. Even once you've filtered for pets allowed there's often loads more restrictions which means places aren't suitable, e.g. one dog only, no dogs under 12 months, only allowed in the kitchen, no dogs in bedrooms. It's the last one that's normally the sticking point for us, our dogs are well behaved but one wouldn't handle sleeping in another room in a strange house.

I love my dog and wouldn't change him, but negatives for us are all the previously expressed problems, in that they're so tying, a LOT more than cats, and even more than children. At least you can take children pretty much anywhere, that's not the case with dogs. If you like beach time, be aware that lots of beaches in the summer don't allow dogs, so you need to choose your beach carefully, and it may not be the beach that you'd choose without a dog. The biggest factor, that we'd considered but not budgeted enough for, is the expense. Our dog has a really sensitive stomach, so can only have expensive food. It's tripled our expected food costs. We go on doggy friendly holidays to France, but since Brexit, the costs of vet fees to organise that has massively increased. We've had so many random vets visits that aren't covered by insurance, because they're less expensive than the excess, but they add up. Our dog has been to the vet loads more frequently than our cats ever did. And the cats hate him, so there's that, they won't come downstairs when he's in the house. He's destroyed various plants in the garden, and chewed random things in the house, so be prepared to overlook a bit of damage to skirting boards etc. Imo it's as difficult and disruptive as having another baby, in some ways it's worse (no joke). If your dog is reactive, you may have to accept a different dog owning life to the one you had envisioned. Your dog might not be able to be around other dogs, or children, or sometimes even just other people, and you may never be able to walk them off lead. Choose your dog and/or breeder very carefully. All sorts of problems can be more common in poorly bred dogs (e.g. from a puppy farm), not just physical health, but mental too. Mental health problems can be inherited, which can display as reactivity. A good breeder won't breed a reactive dog, but a puppy farmer would have no qualms about doing that. But the country walks and companionship of a good natured dog, are lovely.

Lots of people here talking about the tie of having a dog which I think is one of the biggest considerations as it is a con however well behaved your dog is.
Holidays are one thing - dog-friendly or leave in kennels/with a sitter- but days out are in some ways trickier unless you have someone always ready and willing to dog sit.
We got our first dog when our boys were 7,5 and 3 so virtually all their childhood as she died when youngest was 18. Limited our days out together I guess though don’t remember too many examples. 18 months after when my partner semi-retired we got the dog we have now. We do have to consider her all the time we were out though both dogs have been easy to leave for up to 6 hours at a time. Even theatre trips to London (20 miles away)had to be planned carefully and days out in the car are often dependent on leaving her in there while we pop into a museum or restaurant so that very much depends on the weather because of the car heat.
National Trust houses are usually visited one person at a time while the other is outside with the dog.
She’s now 14, we’re both retired and I have a chronic condition which definitely restricts what I want to/ can do and means things have actually got easier! Partner and I both have our own interests so rarely are out for days together. He goes out with his friends and I go out with mine on different days or weekends. We still have half day trips together but that’s no problem and we take dog friendly holidays or very occasionally leave her for the weekend with a friend.

i really do think people need to think carefully about this ‘tie’ though. My son and his partner who have 2 dogs often have to go away separately to cover caring for the dogs which they willing do but it is a big consideration.

Both dogs have been well worth it from our pov though!😍

Also just getting up early every single morning to let the dog out for the loo.

6am without fail for my dog. I just would like to sleep late for once.