dancingspark
Certified Ski Diva
I figured I'd try asking for advice here since I know a lot of you have doggies. Sorry this is so long, I just feel like I'm going insane and wanted to talk about it.
I moved into a place with my cousin last month. He has a 3 year old shepherd dog. She's a bit reserved, but seemed nice enough and he loves her obsessively, so I assumed she would be ok to live with.
Within a few days, it became apparent that was a very bad read of the situation. She's mostly untrained, barely gets any exercise during the week, and all attention comes in the form of my cousin smothering her with affection she doesn't seem to want. She violently attacked a dog in the park last month after slipping her collar, and this week attacked my friends' dog several times while my cousin just stood there and watched (my friend banned my cousin from ever coming over). The dog also is obsessed with chasing my cats and stalks them throughout the day, even though we have a baby gate up to keep her out of half the house. She bit me three times this week, too. My roommate's now afraid this will happen to her. Dog bites hurt!
The big problem is my cousin, who refuses to admit anything she does is bad. He justifies all of her negative behavior ("she's not hunting the cats, she just really likes them! You don't understand dogs." "My dog isn't aggressive, your friends just have bad vibes" "She doesn't bite anyone ELSE, so...take that however you want to.") He said he hasn't trained her because he's afraid she won't like him anymore if he does, and he asked me to do it because he doesn't care if she hates me (his words, not mine). He won't walk her more than once a day (and even that is spotty), he won't hire a trainer, he won't even play with her outside, even though he is home 24/7 because he is unemployed.
Oh--and he's also currently trying to adopt another dog.
I had a Come-to-Jesus talk with him last week about it and he said he'd work on training her, but denied the need for professional help and also wouldn't commit to not getting another dog. He tried to convince me this is all in my head and nothing is actually wrong. He also told me my roommate and I were free to move out if we didn't like living there...which...WHAT??
How long do I wait before I have to take really serious action? And what do I even do? Call animal control? Pay for a trainer myself? Report him to the animal shelter? Am I overreacting? I don't want the dog to get put down because of his negligence and I feel responsible for this somehow. Any advice or even just confirmation that this situation is insane would be so helpful. Thank you!!
I moved into a place with my cousin last month. He has a 3 year old shepherd dog. She's a bit reserved, but seemed nice enough and he loves her obsessively, so I assumed she would be ok to live with.
Within a few days, it became apparent that was a very bad read of the situation. She's mostly untrained, barely gets any exercise during the week, and all attention comes in the form of my cousin smothering her with affection she doesn't seem to want. She violently attacked a dog in the park last month after slipping her collar, and this week attacked my friends' dog several times while my cousin just stood there and watched (my friend banned my cousin from ever coming over). The dog also is obsessed with chasing my cats and stalks them throughout the day, even though we have a baby gate up to keep her out of half the house. She bit me three times this week, too. My roommate's now afraid this will happen to her. Dog bites hurt!
The big problem is my cousin, who refuses to admit anything she does is bad. He justifies all of her negative behavior ("she's not hunting the cats, she just really likes them! You don't understand dogs." "My dog isn't aggressive, your friends just have bad vibes" "She doesn't bite anyone ELSE, so...take that however you want to.") He said he hasn't trained her because he's afraid she won't like him anymore if he does, and he asked me to do it because he doesn't care if she hates me (his words, not mine). He won't walk her more than once a day (and even that is spotty), he won't hire a trainer, he won't even play with her outside, even though he is home 24/7 because he is unemployed.
Oh--and he's also currently trying to adopt another dog.
I had a Come-to-Jesus talk with him last week about it and he said he'd work on training her, but denied the need for professional help and also wouldn't commit to not getting another dog. He tried to convince me this is all in my head and nothing is actually wrong. He also told me my roommate and I were free to move out if we didn't like living there...which...WHAT??
How long do I wait before I have to take really serious action? And what do I even do? Call animal control? Pay for a trainer myself? Report him to the animal shelter? Am I overreacting? I don't want the dog to get put down because of his negligence and I feel responsible for this somehow. Any advice or even just confirmation that this situation is insane would be so helpful. Thank you!!