It's official - I'm a soon to be granny of a furbaby

[SuZir]

And I'm afraid I will be granny with custody of said furbaby in two years.

difficult child and his girlfriend are having a puppy. They have already paid a retainer and puppies will be old enough to move to new homes in November. difficult child and husband had a riff over this earlier and neither has still got over it. husband thinks it is very irresponsible thing for difficult child to do and one more sign how immature and selfish he is. difficult child thinks husband is not having any faith on him. husband is also miffed that we may be looking for paying well over a grand a month for difficult child's therapy costs and in the same time he spends his money in to the dog. difficult child and girlfriend are buying a puppy together (which is always a stupid idea if you ask me, but no one does...) and paying it in half, still difficult child's part is not that much short of that grand and then there is of course insurances, other vet costs, equipments and food. And even if you forget the money (and if difficult child's therapy does get public funding we don't have any leg to stand on in that really) there is a problem of taking care of the puppy. Right now they are in ideal position to take care of it. difficult child has free time middle of the day in most days and girlfriend is a college student with flexible time table. But if they break up, difficult child has no chance to keep the puppy. girlfriend may have, at least first, but she will have for example a semester abroad ahead of her and usually college students with dogs end up sooner or later giving a dog to their parents, or at least needing them to dog sit a lot. This is a big phenomenon around here, so this is not really even difficult child thing, more a typical teen/TYA thing. Young couples move together, want to play family, get a dog and soon after break up or have another change of circumstances and a dog ends up to young couples parents. I can't even count how many of my friends have their kids' dogs living with them. girlfriend's mother is slightly allergic so in this case that leaves us to take care of the dog.

Of course we could say no to that, but I bet we are too attached to her at that point. So if I want to be smart, I better take this into account in my own dog plans. We currently have two family dogs. I have been planning to take a more active work dog in year or two, when our current dogs are in suitable situations for that. But our limit for dogs is three. And even that only temporarily. Two dogs is much better situation. So if I take a dog I want in year, in two years we can easily be in the situation where we have four dogs, two young (and too close in age), one middle aged and one elderly dog. Not a good combination at all.

Only good thing is, that they have at least been smart with the breed. They are taking standard size German Spitz (I think they/very similar breed except a colour is called American Eskimo Dog in USA.) Nice, healthy breed. Very good choice for them and their situation, especially when girlfriend doesn't have any dog experience and they are living in a flat without any yard. I'm little relieved they didn't go with current trend of taking American Bulldogs, Fila Brasileiros or other similar breeds to same kind of situation, like many (too, too many) young couples do. Well at least that difficult child did know better. Oh, and of course a puppy is incredibly cute.

Thinking again, there is other good thing. Hugely great thing in fact. It's not a furless baby. For that I thank all the possible higher powers. I'm not saying I wouldn't want to be granny one day, but I do very much hope that day is ten years in future...

 

[Nancy]

My difficult child has a cat and a dog that she adopted through a rescue group. She doesn't have money for rent or utilities or food but she has a dog. If she goes out partying all night the dog stays in the apartment alone. I end up buy it food just so that it doesn;t starve. She has no business having a dog and can't afford it's vet bills so she just doesn't take it. It's irresponsible but so is she about everything else so why should this be different.

on the other hand I go to my easy child's apartment every day to take her dog out in the middle of the day. She is a teacher and works long hours and she lives only 10 minutes away so it's not a problem and of course I am attached. Two grand furbabies but two completely different situations. You will get attached too.

Nancy

 

[Calamity Jane]

Ha! I'm glad it's not a furless baby either! We have to be thankful for little things, I guess. I'm sure glad you're a dog person, because it sounds like you'll have another one eventually. Sounds cute, though. I wish them all luck.

 

[SuZir]

Other good thing is, that i do believe they will take good care of the dog. girlfriend is a easy child and I also don't have any doubts about difficult child taking good care of a dog. He has always been responsible with animals even if not with everything else. Also a money thing is more of a pet peeve of husband. And if difficult child gets the funding for therapy, that is not something we could in anyway have any say, because we are not really helping him financially (as in giving him money, I still do take care of his finances to help him avoid relapsing.) And even if we would end up paying the therapy I don't really see that much of the problem in difficult child using his money to dog. We made it clear to him from the get go, that we would pay for therapy, if needed. It has been a clear deal that difficult child pays a certain (small) part that he would have to pay himself even if he gets a funding and which therapist insist he has to pay himself to help keep it in mind for whose benefit he is going to therapy. If he wouldn't be buying a dog, we would still not ask him to pay more.

And they do have financial means to take care of the dog. I asked difficult child to provide me an estimated budget of costs of having a dog before I paid a retainer from his account. It's difficult child's money but he has no access to it, our deal is, that I make sure he doesn't have access to more than little bit money at time, but I do not nag or make judgement on how he uses his money, as long as it is not gambling and he pays his bills and has an emergency buffer. Asking for budget was probably overstepping but difficult child didn't seem to mind. He estimated that costs would be between 100 to 150 dollars a month with vet insurance, vet costs not covered in insurance, food, equipment, toys and other things and they can afford that. To me it sounds reasonable and I'm sure they can stay in budget, well depending how many different colour collar & leach-sets, toys and cute hoodies or other not-necessary clothes the puppy will 'need.' If it would be my dog, the costs would be under 100 dollars a month. They also seem to have a realistic understanding how much a puppy will demand time and restrict their freedom. And they also have dog sitters available for them. As long as they stay together I'm sure they will do just fine with a dog and of course having something on their sole responsibility and having to share that responsibility will teach them many good relationship skills for future use.

So my problem is mainly that if they do break up, it is likely neither will be in position to keep a dog or at least it would be very difficult. And at that point they are trying to find someone from the family to take a dog. And I will likely be an obvious choice. And yeah, I will be attached by then. In fact I'm so much of a sucker that I'm already crumbling. difficult child has gotten sneaky and sends me puppy pictures (they visited the breeder few days ago.) The puppy is just so adorable. And difficult child just sent a cutest picture of himself and the puppy.I think I'm a lost case already

I don't really get why husband is so upset about the money part. To me it feels like he has just decided to be upset with difficult child and is just trying to find reasons. Because to be honest, it is not like we would be postponing the retirement to pay for difficult child's therapy. We are postponing kitchen renovation and having a new car. And it is not so many years ago, when we paid about the same amount for difficult child's different sports and music classes combined a month. And we are doing better financially now than then. But husband just stays miffed. It has been going some time now. I do get he was incredibly angry right after difficult child screwed up. That was bad. But he seemed to get over it and only this summer/fall he has started to nitpick everything difficult child does. I have even wondered that if it's about husband feeling guilty over old things and not being able to handle it and trying to convince himself that none of it was his fault but that difficult child is so faulty kid, he could not had done any better. This husband being miffed with everything related to difficult child seemed to start quite quickly after difficult child got diagnosed and that had made me wonder. I wouldn't want to be caught up between the two, because I love them both dearly but husband seems to feel the need to get also me to understand how faulty difficult child is. And that is not too fun.