Some letters from Social Q's

[conuly]

1. When a Dog’s Leash Is More Like a Fuse

I have a leash-reactive dog. He goes bananas when he’s on a leash and sees another dog. It’s a common behavioral issue. Still, I take pains to avoid other dogs when I walk him, and I’m working hard to train away this behavior. Sometimes, when we do meet another dog and mine barks like crazy, the other dog owner yells at me and my dog. What can I say to let them know they should mind their own business and that I’m working on it?

DOG OWNER

I sympathize with your problem, and I’m glad you are working on it. But you seem to be underestimating how alarming it may be for people when your dog “goes bananas.” They may be startled and afraid that your dog will attack them.

Now, I’m not defending anyone yelling here, but you are mistaken when you suggest this is none of their business. Your dog is menacing them: It is definitely their business. When it happens, I would simply apologize and tell them you’re working on the problem. A snappy comeback may only escalate tensions.

Link one

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2. My 29-year-old son has been dating his girlfriend for nearly three years. She must be wondering when they’ll move in together and get engaged. My son is not sure that “she’s the one,” but he hasn’t told her that. His reluctance to take their relationship to the next level is an indication, of course, but apparently, his girlfriend does not see this as a red flag. I assume that’s because she thinks things will change. I am very concerned for her: She’s 30 and wants marriage and children. I have told my son that he should end the relationship if he cares about her. Still, it continues. My husband says that I should stay out of this, but I’m wondering if I should push harder for my son to end things. Your thoughts?

MOTHER

know you want to help. You also seem to have convinced yourself — in the absence of any request for advice or assistance from anyone — that intervening in your son’s relationship is required for his girlfriend’s long-term happiness. But no one has even whispered that she’s dissatisfied. To me, this looks like late-stage helicopter parenting: hovering so closely over your adult child that you also seek to control his romantic partner and their domestic timeline.

Now, you’ve expressed these desires in altruistic terms: Let’s save the girlfriend! And that would be a generous impulse if your son’s girlfriend wanted saving. But I believe we should give a 30-year-old woman the agency to conduct her own affairs. Or at least let her own friends and family be the ones to meddle in them. Even if she has asked for your advice, which does not seem to be the case, send her to a neutral party for help — like a therapist or a couple’s counselor.

I acknowledge the implicit premise that, in retrospect, many people believe they stayed too long in relationships. But ending love affairs is not a decision we get to make for other people. I hope your son and his girlfriend are communicating well. But projecting your assumptions onto them is not helpful. My advice for you is to back off and to work on creating healthier boundaries with your 29-year-old son instead.

Link two

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3. In her will, my grandmother divided her estate equally among my mother and her four adult grandchildren. But there was a separate bequest of $13,000 to my mother — before the calculation of anyone else’s share — to help my younger sister with her I.V.F. treatments. This means that most of us are about $3,000 worse off because of this bequest that none of us knew about. Is it reasonable to expect my sister to reimburse us for this sweetheart deal that we were not a part of? When I asked my mother and sister gently for an explanation, I got the runaround and felt that I was attacked for being confrontational. They think I should be more sensitive to my sister’s fertility issues. But I can’t help feeling ripped off!

If your feelings are hurt by your grandmother’s will — if you think that she played favorites among her grandchildren, for instance, or that she prioritized your sister’s fertility issues above your needs — I sympathize with you. Many people see gifts as proxies for love and believe that children (and grandchildren) should be treated equally in wills — down to the last penny.

You don’t mention hurt feelings, though. Instead, you imply that your grandmother owed you an explanation for her will. (She did not. Many lawyers recommend transparency in estate planning, but it is not a requirement.) Now I don’t know the circumstances here, but if you believe that your grandmother was pressured or hoodwinked — you call it a “sweetheart deal” — you may certainly consult a lawyer. But I suspect this is not what you’re suggesting.

It seems more likely that your charges stem from a misunderstanding: We are not entitled to receive a penny from our parents or grandparents when they die. No one stole $3,000 from you because it was never yours to steal. People leave their money as they choose. That doesn’t mean you won’t feel bad if you think you’ve been slighted. But your grandmother had every right to help your sister with extraordinary medical expenses — regardless of how you feel about it.

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4. Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement in Judaism, is coming up. Earlier this year, my longtime therapist hurt me badly. Although I have given her opportunities to apologize, she has not done so. She has not even acknowledged that she harmed me. This has been devastating for me, and I ended our therapeutic relationship. I know that she observes Yom Kippur. May I ask her to apologize in the spirit of the holiday? Even if she doesn’t apologize directly, it would make me feel better if she conveyed her intention to atone for her behavior.

PATIENT

I hate to be a word nerd here — I know you’re hurting — but when you say you have “given her opportunities” to apologize, does that mean you told your former therapist directly that she hurt you, and how? If you have, and she didn’t apologize or dispute your interpretation of events, I would move on — and congratulate yourself for terminating your therapy with her.

But if you haven’t been clear with your former therapist, it may be helpful to book another session to discuss the issue. Misunderstandings happen! But using Yom Kippur to get what you want — though inventive — is manipulative and irrelevant to your therapeutic relationship.

Link three and four

Comments

[conuly]

1. Something is up with this LW. As they noted, barking at other dogs is common behavior. I've seen other dogs do it, and my dog has done it. And let me say, out of all the utterly absurd things people have said to me while I was walking my dog (special callout to the dude who berated me for letting my dog poop in front of his house when my dog had not pooped in front of his house, or anywhere near his house at all, and nobody else had either!) nobody has ever chided me for having a dog that barks.

So, either LW is surrounded by overreactive people and can honestly ignore them, or they are seriously downplaying their dog's behavior and saying "barks like crazy" when they mean "lunges, pulls me down the street, and attacks". Either way, LW needs to get a muzzle and walk the dog at less popular times of day.

2. Man, I really wish people would drop it with this "next level" talk about relationships. Columnist is right, though - LW2 needs to butt out. (She's not going to take this advice.) Woe betide Son's Girlfriend if they do get married and she's stuck with this interfering MIL.

3. "Ripped off"? Jesus, it's your grandmother and she died. Find some other way to express yourself. Maybe Grandma should not have done as she did, but wow.

4. LW needs more therapy.

[katiedid717]

The guy you mention in #1 sounds like a dude who used to live in a condo complex I managed. He would send emails complaining that a specific neighbor hadn't picked up after her dog, accompanied with a video clip from his doorbell that...showed her picking up after the dog. He and his mother were apparently the self-designated dog poop police and the board had to contact the owner of his unit to be like "you need to tell your tenant to knock it the fuck off"

[conuly]

That dude kept saying he had me on video too! Finally I said "Well, then, let's go look at that video" and all of a sudden, oh, uh, he had had me on video but he, uh, deleted it. Suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuure.

[laurajv]

re: 1. I also have a leash-reactive dog, and I have NEVER been yelled at when walking her! I go to a fair amount of trouble to make sure that she's always under my control, and VISIBLY under my control, and some of the steps I take for that are really obvious -- no one has a head collar, martingale, and harness, all with leads, on a dog for no reason -- but I really have to wonder about LW.

[matsushima]

Is it reasonable to expect my sister to reimburse us for this sweetheart deal that we were not a part of?

LW3… No??? WTF is wrong with you. Your grandmother died (recently?) and you're mad that she left some extra money to your younger sister who is going through a painful, expensive (not to mention, emotionally difficult) medical procedure to offset the costs.

It sounds like you got a pretty nice chunk of change anyway even if you were expecting $3,000 more. You should be grateful you got anything.

[mrissa]

AGREED. And the only way I MIGHT think LW3 had a point is if LW3 is also going through IVF and has similar levels of insurance coverage to her sister. But I think she would have mentioned if so.

I always tell my grandma, "It's not my money! It's your money! Spend it all on strippers and beer if you want to! Play it on the ponies! You do not owe me ONE SINGLE THING." This makes her giggle, but also I feel pretty strongly that it is morally correct.

[minoanmiss]

I have Feelings about #4. Also #1 but you've all heard my Dog Owner Rant.

A long time ago I was deeply in love with a Jewish guy, and because we were both young he hurt me, and Yom Kippur came and went and he didn't say anything. And I was mifffed. And then in a rare moment of common sense I told myself that making someone's holy day about me was stupid and appropriative and that if I wanted closure on how he hurt me maybe I should talk to him about it.

The talk didn't go well, because we were young, but I am glad to this day I didn't say something like "hey you just had an Apology Holiday, apologize to me." Because that would have been so egregiously cringeworthy the memory would have killed me ten times over.

In conclusion, #4 needs more therapy.

[full_metal_ox]

Congratulations! Your refusal to weaponize someone else’s solemn religious observance for rhetorical leverage proved you to be a fundamentally decent person.

(And a codified Apology Holiday—-and that means apology apologies, not “I’m sorry you were offended”, and even restitution if possible—-is something Christians desperately need.

(P.S: don’t appropriate Yom Kippur; get your own.)

[ysobel]

Yes to all of that.

[conuly]

Too many Christians* are thoroughly drunk on Cheap Grace and would never accept an apology holiday. At least, not if they had to do the apologizing.

* Even one is too many

[minoanmiss]

blushes I try my best.

I'm not a Christian anymore. I don't know if a Restitution Holiday could even be implemented in modern [American] Christianity, but it might be worth a try.

[cimorene]

Given the lack of details and the other sketchiness in #4, I'm not at all confident that they were owed an apology, that the therapist acted wrongly, that an apology wouldn't be counter productive, or even that they didn't get one. It just has that crazy grudgy aroma that indicates a non-standard relationship with reality and events. The answer should have been No, you may absolutely not ask someone to apologize in light of their religious holidays. If the therapeutic relationship is over, then No, you may not ask them to apologize at all, unless you want to pay for an hour of their time in which to do so, but it seems like a futile gesture.

LW1 really needs a sanity check. People are afraid of dogs even when they are not aggressive. Dogs as a class are legitimately a danger, even though most dogs are not dangerous to most people. There is nothing unusual or rude about people reacting strongly to meeting a dog who is acting aggressively in public. If you're responsible and working on it, that's great. Other dogs owners aren't, and people can't safely assume that an aggressive dog is safe. They SHOULD speak to you! They are showing concern that is reasonable! You're in a public place meeting strangers with your dog who appears aggressive! You live in a society!

[topaz_eyes]

1. I can't count the number of times a dog owner has told me, "My dog won't hurt you, he's just excited!" Meanwhile, they're actively struggling to stop said leashed dog from lunging and jumping on me. No, if a dog owner has to fight to stop their dog, that dog is not under control. They both need obedience training. If it keeps happening, that's an owner problem, not a dog problem. (It's especially bad when I see a child who's obviously too small to keep the dog under control.)

(And, the smallest dogs are the worst. They're usually off-leash and spoilt rotten.)

[conuly]

(And, the smallest dogs are the worst. They're usually off-leash and spoilt rotten.)

Oh, god, and when you have a small dog and that small dog has a relatively fixable, or at least controllable, behavior problem (like trying to lunge at granny carts and strollers) people are the worst. "Oh, don't stop her, she's just trying to protect you!"

Yeah, well, you wouldn't laugh if she bit your ankles, so could you not? Could you not, thanks.

[full_metal_ox]

(And, the smallest dogs are the worst. They're usually off-leash and spoilt rotten.)

There’s a reason toy (and the very term is telling) dogs get to be like that: they’re not taken seriously as animals, meaning that they’re (A) treated as adorable little plushies or purse accessories without any boundaries a human need respect, and (B) regarded as completely ineffectual and harmless, and never mind that the passions and instincts of a wolf are still compressed into that wheezy three-pound frame.

When a dog develops the attitude that nobody else is going to defend them and isn’t taught discipline…that’s how you get little Chiquita biting the baby’s nose off or picking a fight with some rabid raccoon.

[movingfinger]

LW1 needs to work harder on the training (I suspect LW1 is not consistent about it), walk the dog in places where they will not meet other dogs, and understand that it can take more than a year to break an established habit like this in an adult dog. And they need to understand that the behavior is a big problem, that they need to be publicly and firmly correcting it when they do encounter another dog (which, if they see the other dog? LW and their dog cross the street, take the corner, do not push the encounter) in order to train the dog out of this.

This is one of the hardest habits to break and I hope LW has a good professional trainer and isn't just yelling at the dog. A muzzle is helpful, too, at least for the dog.

[laurajv]

a big YES to how hard this is to stop. Our dog was not always leash-reactive; she became reactive after our other dog passed away in 2016. Despite a lot of work with a professional, she's still leash-reactive, so we take steps to keep her under control on walks.

(She's also trained for bikerunning, and does NOT need extra care for her control when doing that. bikerunning is apparently Too Fun to pay attention to other dogs about. when attached to the bike she is only focused on one thing, and that is, how fast can I run next to this bike)

[magid]

#3. I'm surprised the grandmother left anything to the grandkids directly, rather than to her daughter with the assumption that her daughter would do the same in turn. LW#3, be happy your grandmother chose to include all you grandkids in her will at all.