What should I do about the dog?

[ZTAngel]

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????