Dear Prudence: I'd Rather Have The Dog At My PArty

[minoanmiss]

What’s the etiquette for hosting when a guest doesn’t like dogs? I recently hosted a small party (15 people) with my boyfriend at my apartment. My boyfriend’s dog, whom I love, was also in attendance. The dog is a medium-sized dog, well-trained, and sweet. The majority of guests loved having the dog there, except my friend who hates dogs. She is not allergic and to my knowledge has no traumatizing experience with them. She just isn’t a dog person. I get it; I used to be the same way until I started dating my boyfriend.

Upon inviting her to the party, I mentioned the dog would be there and that we would not be putting the dog in another room or in a crate. The dog was well-behaved for the whole party, but my friend would freak out when his tail wag would hit her leg, got upset when the dog barked when the doorbell rang, and would call me over to do something about it (what is there to even do?). She even went as far at one point in the evening to appoint one of my other guests (whom she had never met) as being on dog duty so the dog would not come near her and would call him out when he wasn’t adhering to his duties.

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I was displeased with my friend’s behavior and was upset that she gave another guest a “job” at my party. Prior to my liking dogs, I would always just give the dog a small pet upon arrival and do my best to avoid him for the rest of the night. My gut says my friend’s behavior was wrong, but Prudence, I am wondering if my behavior was also wrong in not finding alternative arrangements for the dog. I thought giving my friend the heads up about the dog’s presence was fair enough, and it would be up to my friend to decide whether to attend or not. Now I am second guessing myself. I am having another party soon, and I am not sure what to do. In the past, there have been power struggles in this friendship of she being very demanding and I being a doormat. I am working on sticking up for myself, but maybe this was the wrong area to start with? Please help.

— Am I in the Doghouse?

Dear Doghouse,

You absolutely did nothing wrong. Normally I would say, invite her to the next party with another warning that the dog will be present. But you mentioned that there’s an ongoing power struggle in this relationship, so maybe this is an opportunity to stand up for yourself. “Hi friend, I’m having another party but the dog will be there again and I learned last time that it’s hard for me to host while responding to your anxiety about him—and it didn’t seem like you were able to relax and enjoy yourself. So I think it will be best if you don’t come, but can we get together in a pet-free place another time?”

Comments

[lilysea]

I like dogs, and am not allergic or traumatized

but I have had issues where dogs jumped up on me or flopped over onto my legs in ways which caused me serious pain

dogs can jump on you or flop on you hard, and that can seriously aggravate chronic pain.

I once met up with a friend who had their very sweet/affectionate dog in tow for a walk, and we sat down on the grass for a rest

and the dog (Labrador sized) affectionately flopped all it's weight on the front of one of my legs so hard that for half a second I genuinely thought it had broken my leg bone, it hurt so much.

I was like "ow!!!!!!!" can you not let sweet dog flop on me?

and my friend got really grumpy and defensive and was like "dogs are gonna dog! you can't stop a dog just deciding to fling all it's body weight on your friend's sore leg!!!!!"

So then we stopped going for walks together.

[r_tt_n]

That does sound very painful 💀 I'm glad you didn't break anything, tho I wonder how your friend would have reacted in that case (ngl I have come to resent the overzealous Dog Lover™ types a lot in the past years)

But yeah, I also considered that kind of thing. Dogs can hurt people even when they're not being aggressive, especially big dogs. The letter mentions that this is a medium-sized dog, so I'm not sure how much of an issue that could be in this case, but I'm sure there still could be accidents, even if it's "just" tripping or something like that

[lilysea]

Yes, a paleoartist I follow on social media got very badly injured after he accidentally tripped over his very sweet scottish-terrier sized dog