Ask Amy: ever more entitled dog people

[lemonsharks]

Dear Amy: We are starting to have trouble with family members who are dog-lovers.


This Christmas we were asked to host the family gathering. As we have only elderly cats in our home, we asked family members to leave their dogs at home, find accommodation for their dogs, or perhaps host Christmas themselves.

We do not have a fenced yard, nor any facility to host their dogs.

People brought their dogs, anyway.

We were told that we had to fence in our yard before next year to accommodate dogs that we don’t have.

Some insisted that we should confine our cats to a bedroom so that these family members could bring their dogs inside.

This isn’t fair to us or our cats, who have lived in a dog-free house for over 15 years.

One dog always jumps up on people, and we have disabled and elderly members of the family who can’t withstand having a larger dog jump up on them. One of these family members is currently recovering from a compound fracture that occurred as a result of one of the dogs jumping on them.

Some dogs have stolen food off the table, and others don’t get along well with the other dogs.

I’m sorry that it is difficult for us to accommodate them, but owning a dog is their choice and comes with responsibility that perhaps they may have to find a pet sitter for one or two days if the place they are traveling to cannot accommodate their animals.

Or they could host the holiday, themselves!

I arrange for pet care for our cats when we are out of town, and don’t force them on other family members. I ask for the same consideration in return.

Your thoughts?


Family Member

Dear Family Member: Before I had a dog, I was assured that I would see my own dog as a “fur baby,” a sort of child substitute.

Then I got a dog. And nope — this beloved animal is not my baby.


Yes, this dog is definitely a member of the family (as my many cats have been), but good and responsible parenting — of the human or canine kind — requires that you occasionally find good outside care, because your baby (human or “fur”) can’t go everywhere with you.

And if you can’t find care, you may have to stay home.

You have the right to ask family members not to bring their dogs to your holiday party, and they should respect this understandable request.


When they host family gatherings, you will find care for your feline family members and put up with their dogs, but it looks like you’re off the hook for hosting next year.

Comments

[lemonsharks]

I think LW should continue making the no dogs policy clear, turn dog bringers away at the door, and let the chips fall where they may.

"Last year cousin Braydynne's mastiff jumped on my grandmother and broke her hip.

"That is why no dogs are allowed at my gatherings. They knew about it going in and chose to bring their dogs anyway. Their angst over being turned away is angst of their own making, not mine, and it is not my problem. "

[ashbet]

I cannot even imagine that level of entitlement. My friends know that I have a no-dogs house, and no one has ever tried to force their dog on me (I have 4 cats currently, although historically, it’s been 2.)

I suspect this is “faaaaaaaamily,” but I’d be turning them away at the door if they brought uninvited pets.

[movingfinger]

The passive voice speaks loudly here.

Who "asked" LW to "host the family gathering"?

That person or persons can do it next year. LW can let the family know that because X, Y, and Z brought dogs in 2021 after being told not to do that, they cannot host.

[cereta]

I swear, the whole idea of bringing your pet to someone else's house just baffles me. I did it once, when my first cat was still a kitten and I was visiting my mother for three weeks, and my mother adores cats. I honestly don't know how I'd react if someone showed up at my doorstep for a party with their dog.

Honestly, I think LW is best off just refusing to host again. There is nothing they can say or do that will keep these...people from bringing their dogs, and I'm guessing LW and I-assume-spouse would rather spend a quiet holiday pre-shunned than spend it arguing with people on their front porch. Although the latter might spice up the neighbors' gatherings.

[melannen]

That passive voice is carrying a lot of water.

There were always dogs at my extended family holidays - and I gotta say there's value in that, because it was the only time as a kid I got to hang out with dogs, and it's a useful thing to learn to do. And for some families, dogs at family gatherings is a part of what you do, and it wouldn't be [holiday] without. - but they were always held, for that reason, at houses that had large dog-safe yards, and large, loud, or rambunctious dogs stayed outside.

Who had 'decided' OP with her no-dogs house is hosting? Is it uncharitable of me to suspect it was OP? OP, this may be a situation where if you *want* to be a good Designated Host for your dog-loving family, you should in fact fence your yard.

Otherwise, as you yourself said, someone else can host the dog people.

[minoanmiss]

Even so, what about cats? and fragile old bones?

[melannen]

That's why the dogs go out in the fenced yard, and the cats and fragile old bones and people with bad allergies don't, unless they actively choose to play with the dogs and take the risk. And why if you don't have the fenced yard as an option, you don't invite the dogs.

LW's family are assholes regardless because if the host says no dogs, don't bring your dogs, and if you want to bring your dogs, don't have it at LW's house. That's not complicated!! (Plus, I don't think anyone in my family who has dogs would bring them to a place where there were going to be *other* big dogs without accepting the fact the dog might have to stay out in the car/on the porch in a crate the whole time. LW's family are both assholes and bad dog owners, and also LW doesn't seem to like them very much.)

But I'm thinking about my extended family where of course you bring the dogs, and of course the dogs go out in the yard and play together the whole time the family is celebrating inside, and everybody meets and greets each other's dogs, and that's as much a part of the gathering as the dinner and telling the kids how tall they've gotten. And also how weird and awkward and sometimes awful it's been as the people who had previously hosted those gatherings, who had done things like get their yards fenced just so they could have the family dogs visit! - have passed away and we've had to negotiate new traditions. I can see otherwise okay people really wanting it to be just like the holidays at Uncle Fred's and letting that override, like, basic not being an asshole and common sense.

[minoanmiss]

*nods* Okay, I see what you mean.

[grammarwoman]

Wow! I'm a dog person who always wants to bring her dog along to family gatherings (mainly because otherwise she'd be home alone most of the day and get into trouble), and I still think LW's family are rude assholes for bringing their dogs when specifically asked not to. It's part of dog ownership, to make alternate plans for them when necessary.

[torachan]

I can imagine because I am the manager of a grocery store and we see the worst of dog owners.

I know not all dog owners are assholes but the type who blithely bring their dogs in a store that has signs that say service dogs only when their dogs are clearly not service dogs (and then lie and say they are when their dog is peeing on the floor and licking the products and jumping on employees and other customers) are definitely assholes. This LW's family members almost certainly are this sort of dog owner.

[liv]

This feels slightly like a frame conflict. If dogs are family, if they're people-equivalent, well, you have to deal with them, it's usually rude to invite some members of a household but not others. If dogs are just a hobby that comes with a lot of mess and noise and risk of injury, then it's rude on the part of the guests to impose them on their host.

[lilysea]

Even if they are people-equivalents, it is fair to say to a family "X family member caused someone else a compound fracture by jumping on someone, you can't bring them again unless they have matured enough not to do it again"

[lemonsharks]

Except they're not people-equivilant, and never will be people-equivilant, due to being dogs.

[cereta]

I think there's a very, very wide spectrum between those two things. My cats are way more than a hobby. I consider them part of my family. But they're not people. They have very little understanding of being snubbed, for one, and they make other members of my family physically ill. And if these days, I care less about the human members than I do about the cats, that doesn't actually say anything good about our relationship.

[lemonsharks]

This ☝️

You can exclude an animal for its nature, because you simply dislike that nature, and it's generally not a big deal^1, and definitely carries no moral weight. Excluding a person (for example: cousin John's husband) for their nature (gayness) because you don't like it is straight up bigotry.

Excluding Cousin Beatrice's beloved pet dogs because one doesn't like dogs does not have the same weight as excluding Cousin John's husband because one doesn't like gays.

Which is what it feels like liv's assertion is saying:

If dogs are family, if they're people-equivalent, well, you have to deal with them, it's usually rude to invite some members of a household but not others

Dogs can be family to their family (I would trolley problem right past Species Loyalty to save one of my cats) but that does not mean they carry the privileges of being human kin to others. (See note about service animals below.)

It is not possible to be bigoted against an animal. And I say that as a person who has strong opinions about the species I keep as pets. (Cats, snakes, maybe someday BIG lizards).

__ 1 service animals fall in the same class as meds and mobility aids; excluding them is the same as excluding their handler for being disabled

[lemonsharks]

I get what you're saying but I also feel like the host has the privilege of changing those traditions by mandate if no one else steps up to host. Even if they do have/inherit a safe fenced in dog friendly yard.

Their reasons don't even have to be "good," (ie medically necessary) like having a kid or partnering with someone who's dog allergic in an anaphylactic way. host not wanting their yard torn up by playing dogs is enough reason for the host to change the tradition from "dogs welcome" to "no dogs".

[conuly]

Even if the dog is a service dog, they have no right to be there if they're ill-behaved.

[conuly]

There are many situations where you invite some members of a household but not others.

A child's birthday party, for example, might mean an invite for one sibling but not the other and (unless the child is very young) implicitly not include the parents, or at least only ONE parent.

Likewise, an adult get-together might include only adult family members and instructions to leave the kids at home with a sitter.

[lemonsharks]

I'm using the narrow/legal definition of service dog, which loses its protected status if it isn't well behaved/under the handler's control.

"I'm not inviting Terry to movie night because I don't like their service dog" is functionally very similar to "I'm not inviting Terry to movie night because I think closed captions they need due to being Deaf are ugly and would marginally decrease my enjoyment of movie night."

(Insert service animal dialogue here about the pros and cons of a narrow/the current legal definition of service animal in my jurisdiction (USA).)

[melannen]

Yeah, that's why I'm feeling like how the LW ended up hosting is the thing I most want to know about this letter. "No one else stepped up to host so I did even though they could have" vs. "I am the only person in the family with a house suitable for a big gathering so it's my way or nothing" vs. "I passive-aggressively decided I was the new host even though other people were willing" vs. "Uncle Benjy volunteered my place and family dynamics meant I couldn't say no" are all going to shake out really differently here.

(It also depends what kind of family gathering this is. On my Dad's side of the family it's ten people if literally everybody in the extended family comes, and probably half that any given year, and everybody knows each other and what the expectations around dogs etc. are and who and how to ask if they're not sure.

On my Mom's side it's 70+ people from four generations and also various in-laws/neighbors/ex-SOs we refused to cut off because we still like them/cousins-in-law/former foster kids' grandkids/my cousin once removed's wife's second cousin who is also my uncle's extranged son's baby mama/local strays who made the mistake of saying they didn't have anywhere to go/etc. That's a very different sort of event, and it's going to be way harder to get changes to tradition through people's heads. The way LW described it it sounded closer to that to me, but it's hard to say.

That family has started just renting a community hall as the older generation with farmhouses passes away.)

[melannen]

I think dogs can be family without being people-equivalent. I think what I was getting at above is that if the dogs have always been part of the invite for this event before, as part of the family at the family event, then it is rude to unilaterally cut them out. It might not just be that the dog owners want to bring them, but that the rest of the family wants to spend time with them! (...says a person who has frequently liked some of her family's dogs more than some of her family.)

The event might need extra accommodations to be safe for the dogs to come, but you also don't cut family members out of family events because you don't feel like making accommodations. If you just can't accommodate them safely, that's one thing. If you don't want to try because you don't like them and actively want to cut them out of the family (which tbh is the vibes LW is giving off) that's a different thing.

[lemonsharks]

Yeah, the context around hosting is a huge piece of missing info without which it's not possible to give sound advice, just speculation.

[lemonsharks]

I wonder how much of "it's rude to exclude dogs which have always been included/it's rude to insist the new host host dogs at a family event they now host (that has always included dogs)" comes down to how any given individual feels about dogs

*Wry laugh*

[melannen]

I'm not even really a dog person! But there were several very lovely dogs that I only got to see once or twice a year at the big family get-togethers and I would be really sad if Aunt Karen unilaterally decided I never got to see them again because she couldn't handle having to vacuum a little dog hair on the carpets once a year. (Also if her cats are delicate they should probably be locked in the back rooms while guests are there anyway!)

I think part of it is also if you come from an extended family that treats dogs that way or not. A lot of people in this discussion have been like, "Surely after elderly relative got hurt, everybody would agree to no dogs!" and I'm like... in my mom's family the elderly relative who was hurt would probably be the loudest voice in favor of continuing to have the dogs come.

[ayebydan]

agreed