What should I do about the dog?
 

Ok, GCers, I need some advice. Here's the situation (it's long...sorry):

My boyfriend lives with one of his fraternity brothers/best friend. His roommate has a dog. It's the cutest little Rat Terrier. I love the dog.

The running joke amongst me and Mr. ZTAngel is that the dog is ours. We refer to ourselves as the dog's mom and dad while his roommate is just the uncle. The reason: his roommate is never home. Last semester, he was working 70 hours a week. This semester, he's taking 15 credit hours plus working 40+ hours a week. While I think this is very commendable, I just feel that he doesn't have the time to have a pet. (He goes to school at 8am and then is gone all day until 1am which is when he gets back from work) His mother has offered to take the dog and, personally, I think that since he doesn't have time to take care of it, he should give the dog to his mom.

My boyfriend doesn't mind taking care of the dog. My boyfriend and I are the ones who feed it, bathe it, clips his toenails, walk him (the two of us even go back to the apmt. to walk him during our lunch breaks), train him (my boyfriend taught the dog all the commands), and we play with the dog. Basically, the dog thinks that me and my boyfriend are the owners and that my boyfriend's roommate is just some dude that comes over every so often (his roommate usually just goes to his girlfriend's after work).

I fear for what will happen when my boyfriend moves out this summer.

My boyfriend was in San Diego all last week. I called his roommate and told him that if he needed someone to help him take care of the dog for the week to just let me know. I was like, "I'm home from work everyday by 4:45 and I live 10 minutes away from the office so I can walk him. If you need me to bring the dog to my place for the week, it's not a problem." His roommate was like, "I can handle it."

We got back to Mr. ZTAngel's on Friday night. The apartment smelled. We went to the cage to see the poor dog sitting in his own piss, crap, and vomit. There was no food nor water in the cage.

This wouldn't be as big of deal if this was the first time this happened. It's not. Anytime me and the boyfriend leave to go somewhere for over a day, this is what happens to the dog. His roommate claims that he'll take care of his own dog and then doesn't; the dog is the one that suffers. After not being home for an extended period, Mr. ZTAngel and I are the ones who end up cleaning up after the dog when it should be his roommate's job.

Instead of working on his grad school essay, my boyfriend spent all day yesterday cleaning out the dog's cage and giving the dog a much-needed bath (the dog smelled so bad that we didn't even want to pet it). My boyfriend kept calling his roommate the whole weekend asking, "Are you coming home anytime? Your dog's cage needs to be cleaned." His roommate would say "yeah, I'll be home" and then not show up.

I've told Mr. ZTAngel that he needs to talk to his roommate except he doesn't want to start WWIII within the apartment. His roommate is oversensitive and will resort to childhood antics if he feels that he's being attacked. He'll either ignore us or start doing little annoying things around the house like purposely turning his stereo on full blast at 2am. If I talk to his roommate, his roommate will probably tell me I'm not welcome in the apartment.

I would call the Humane Society except that means that they'll take away the dog and I don't want that to happen.

What do I do????

Give him an ultimatum - either he:

a) starts taking care of the dog
b) relenquishes all responsibility of the dog to you and your bf

If he refuses either of these options then I would threaten to call the humane society.

Tell him you really have no choice, if he isn't going to claim responsibility then you can't stand to see the dog suffer. You don't actually have to call the humane society, but see what happens when you threaten it. Worse comes to worse the dog can always "run away" to your house ;)

Cosign. Having a dog is a responsibility, and this roomie does not have what it takes to deserve a pet.

I think I'll have a talk with the roommate tonight if he actually comes home.

I just want to post a pic of the my dog. :)

The dog on the left is my friend's Boxer. The dog on the right in our's. His name is Conan and he's a Rat Terrier.

http://img14.photobucket.com/albums/v42/ZTAngel/dog.jpg

I was so sad to hear this. My family was told that keeping the dog in his kennel while out makes it his home, therefore he would not want to do anything in the cage since he'd have to live like that, but in this case what else was he to do, and you know the poor guy was lonely and miserable. This makes me sooo mad!! I hope you get the situation handled, that poor little dog needs a loving parent!

We were taught the same thing and it was true - my dog will never go in his kennel. Once I woke up and heard him making noise - he had to throw up so he was poking his little snout out of the cage to try and not make a mess.

ZTAngel, I'd give him an ultimatim - or maybe offer to buy the dog from him.

He hardly ever goes to the bathroom in his cage. The only time he will is when he's left in there all day and he has no choice. When I come home from work and walk him, he's fine and there's no problem. This poor dog can't hold himself for 12 hours! I doubt any human could do that!

That's a great idea GP...asking to buy the dog from him. I'm thinking that once my bf moves out that I might do that. I would love to take the dog. When me and my boyfriend are there, the dog is always taken care of properly. He gets food, water, baths, walked on a regular basis, and (most importantly) he gets love and attention. The problem is when the bf goes out of town for a little while. :( I know that I could provide that dog a much better home than his roommate can.

And I think if you did it that way, he'd feel better about it, not so much like "Oh, ZTAngel and Mr. ZTAngel think I can't raise my damn dog" but instead "ZTAngel and Mr. ZTAngel love my little puppy so much that they want him, what a good job I did raising him." I just hate to see animals in bad homes when they have people who want to love them. I think this means I might become a dog lady when I'm older.

I know this is a hard situation because of the living arrangements but ultimately you have to look after the health of the dog. The poor thing sounds like it doesn't get good treatment when you are not around. The humane society would definately remove a dog from that type of environment and I can tell that isn't what you want. Hopefully you can get this all straightened out and give that dog the home and love it deserves.

I think asking if you can buy the dog from the roommate is a brilliant idea! This guy is obviously about as mature as the average 5 year old, so you have to appeal to his better side. I definitely think that if he feels attacked he would probably keep the dog out of spite and we definitely don't want that! :(

Let us know what happens!

I would agree with buying the dog. He will argue about all the money he put into the dog otherwise.

Me, too! Especially if there's something the roommate has been wanting to buy lately...you could say, "I'll buy the dog, and then you'll be able to buy that [whatever] you've been eyeing!" That way, he'd think there was something in it for him. He really does sound like the dog could take better care of him than he does of it.

Just yank the dog away and pretend it ran off. He'll move away and he'll never know.

-Rudey

Did anything happen with this? I feel so bad for that poor little dog! I have a part Rat Terrier, too. No dog deserves to be treated like that.

Unfortunately its his dog.

It also sounds like he is a little kid-like in the sense that once you and the BF started taking care of the talk he just assumes you are going to keep doing it so he doesn't bother.