Dear Prudence: Pets are not family, are they?

[lilysea]

Q. Pets are not family, are they?: My childless sister “Sally” and I are close but are having a disagreement. Sally lives several hours away, and my 8-year-old daughter and I try to visit for the weekend about once per month. The problem is that my daughter has severe pet allergies, and Sally has two cats and a small terrier.

Though she keeps her house as clean as possible, the very presence of these pets causes my daughter to sneeze, congest, and sometimes break out in hives. I’ve repeatedly asked Sally to either get rid of them or keep them outside during our visits, but Sally claims that though she loves her niece, she can’t keep her pets outside all weekend because the cats are “indoor only,” the dog is too little to stay outside, and coyotes are a danger. She also told me that I was out of line to ask. Was I? They’re only animals, after all, and her niece is family. When she visits us she boards them or gets a sitter, so I don’t see why she can’t do the same when we visit. She’s also suggested that my daughter take allergy medication, but I find that out of line. Is it? How can we resolve this?

A: The most important thing to do here, I think, is to make sure you don’t let a conversation about reasonable accommodation turn into one about whether your sister’s pets “really count” as family. (I’m on your side in the sense that I think a human child’s health is paramount here, but I just don’t think it will be useful to turn this into a litigation on your respective reproductive choices.)

It’s absolutely fair of you to say that the present situation is dangerous to your daughter’s health. It’s also fair that your sister is anxious about leaving her dog outside for an entire weekend, especially if she lives in a coyote-heavy area. If she were willing and able to hire a pet sitter during your visits, that would be an ideal solution, but since she isn’t, you should advocate for your daughter’s health and stay in a nearby hotel so that she can get a full night’s sleep without having difficulty breathing.

Incidentally, unless your daughter has an issue with allergy medication, I’m not sure why you wouldn’t have some at the ready with you, given that she might have a reaction to someone else’s pet at any time. That doesn’t mean she’ll be suddenly able to sleep comfortably in a house with three small furry animals, but there’s nothing wrong with giving someone allergy medicine for an allergy attack.

Comments

[lilysea]

I think it is perfectly reasonable that a pet-owner does not want their pets to be outdoors, where they are at risk from coyotes or being hit by cars, potentially resulting in $$$$ vet bills and/or the death of a pet(s).

I think it is also perfectly reasonable to ask that an allergic person not be subjected to an allergy trigger, given how deeply unpleasant allergies can be, and that allergies often get cumulatively more severe with each subsequent exposure to an allergy trigger.

The solution would seem to be

"Mother and daughter stay
at a hotel
or motel
or a private room in a youth hostel,

sister meets them at
a cafe
a public park
a library
a playground
a museum
an art gallery
a beach
a public pool etc etc
to spend time with them sans pets."

I'm not sure Prudence is in the right with her "just take allergy medicine" because:

a) many allergists advise that allergies can get cumulatively worse with each exposure, so repeated exposures can result in a mild allergy becoming a life-threatening one;

b) allergy meds can be quite sedating;

c) long-term use of some types of allergy meds (the anticholinergic ones: not all allergy meds are anticholinergic) signficantly increases the risk of dementia[1].

[1] https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/common-anticholinergic-drugs-like-benadryl-linked-increased-dementia-risk-201501287667

[jadelennox]

I have a required annual trip to family where we've always been obliged to stay in the family home, in which there is a chain smoker. A few years ago, I got my CPAP, and discovered that CPAP and cigarette smoke is a disaster. The solution was simple: we explained it to the family members, and said we'd be happy if the smoked smoked outside for a week, or we'd be happy staying in a hotel, but it had to be one or the other for health reasons. The smoker thought about it, and said no, he didn't want to smoke outside for a week. We stayed in a hotel. Everybody was happy as clams.

Yes, it costs money. Budgets can be a thing, though. Find a hostel, go to a Super 8, find a cheap sofasurf trade.

Similarly, when my sister was alive, she used a wheelchair. After a few years dragging the wheelchair up the steps with her in it for Thanksgiving dinner, I looked into adding a ramp to my house. It would have been impossible without major structural changes to the property. So, her medical needs clashed with my practical needs.

Simple solution: for holiday meals, we ate at accessible places such as restaurants or my mum's flat. It worked just fine.

[minoanmiss]

Dear LW and LW's sister: do you want to find an actual solution (pro-tip, listen to lilysea) or do you want to have a philosophical debate about the nature of family and how much someone is allowed to love their pets? I think you two might need to settle that question first. (I suggest working towards an actual solution.)

[jadelennox]

This.

Speaking as (1) a childless person who is obsessively protective of my cats' day-to-day quality of life, and (2) a person with severe health issues that need to be accommodated sometimes, no, do not tell the pet owner that their pets aren't important, and no, don't tell the parent that medication is better than adapted environments if they don't want medication. This is not a question of who to save from a house fire, this is a question of lodging. Visit a little less often to save the money to pay for a Comfort Inn.

[fairestcat]

While I agree with the LW that they need to find some compromise, it's pretty clear from their letter that they've probably never owned pets. It's the quotes around "indoor only" that do it. No, if she's a responsible pet owner she can't put her indoor only cats outside for the weekend. They would have no idea how to survive and she'd be lucky to get them back alive.

That said, if she wants to keep seeing her niece she has to find some way to settle this. If her house is kept as clean as LW suggests, then possibly boarding the animals sometimes when her LW and her daughter are in town will be enough. Maybe sometimes the animals can be boarded and sometimes the LW can stay at a hotel, thus spreading the financial burden around a bit.

"just take allergy pills" isn't a long-term solution, but LW should probably acknowledge that her daughter is going to have to take them at least some of the time to cope as she's growing up. It's not possible or even necessarily desirable to always entirely avoid allergens like pet dander that can linger in the air.

Despite my having allergy-induced asthma, it never occurred to my parents to give me any kind of allergy meds on a regular basis, and growing up and discovering long-acting anti-histamines was a revelation for me.

[eleanorjane]

I'm personally in the "animals are *not* people" camp and am a bit bemused by people who call their pets their kids. But that's not even the point here. The point is that the LW wants her siser to prioritise something (LW's daughter) in the manner and to the degree that the LW thinks she should, and the LW is being an asshole. IMO.

Admintedly the "her niece is faaaaaaamily" pushed all of my buttons; I have no time for Family as a sacred cow. Family is exactly as important as you choose to make it, and if 'family' matters less to Sally than her pets, that is absolutely 100% her right and LW can deal.

[tielan]

"Family" means finding alternatives if it's really that important - that goes for LW as well as the sister.

The other thing being that "family" would not put the sister into a position of having to choose between keeping her pets or seeing her niece.

[kaberett]

I'm... really baffled at the idea that putting the pets outside would solve the allergy problems during a visit. Not without a deep clean, it wouldn't???

[the_rck]

Yes! I can't safely visit until cats have been completely gone for six weeks. My BIL and his wife wan us to visit, and they keep talking about having kept one bedroom cat free. I've explained several times that not letting the cats in doesn't mean no dander in the air inside

[mommy]

The house would still have dander even if the sister did what LW wanted for each and every monthly visit. At best, all that would be accomplished is a collection of stressed pets and a child who routinely suffers from allergies.

[kaberett]

Yep! I'm coming at this from the perspective of having a bunch of allergies, including "most animal fibres", so I... am having a great deal of difficulty interpreting this as a parent who actually cares about the specifics of the child in question (given the severity of the allergies!) as opposed to some kind of weird long-running power struggle with the sister. Which is possibly uncharitable of me! I just cannot wrap my brain around why on earth she thinks her proposed solution would possibly work, even if it were an appropriate way to treat the animals.

[neotoma]

If there are coyotes in the area, cats and a small dog are in danger of being coyote snacks if they wind up outside, so I'm not terribly sympathetic to the LW's 'just put them outside'.

And I'm definitely not sympathetic to 'repeatedly asked her to get rid of them'.

Boarding the pets, otoh, could make sense, but so could having the LW and daughter stay in a hotel -- it would depend on which one would be more expensive, and it's not necessarily the hotel.

[lilysea]

and even if the cats are boarded, upholstered armchairs and sofas will have enough cat dander on them to be an allergy trigger, absent a very deep clean indeed.

[madripoor_rose]

I agree with everyone else, and also wonder how much the writer understands about her daughter's allergies.

I'm extremely sensitive to cat dander. I've had my eyes itch for four hours from a library book that must have been in a house with a cat. Simply putting pets outside wouldn't do it for me, the entire house and every single thing in it would have to be professionally deep cleaned, down to the vents. A once a month visit would easily run up to thousands of dollars.

[the_rck]

I once ended up (mutually) deciding not to get serious with a a guy who had a cat because getting serious would have required rehoming the cat. I resolved after that not to date anyone with a pet I'm allergic to.

[cereta]

I had just gotten a cat when now-hubby and I met. When I told my severely-allergic brother about the relationship, he asked what I would have done if now-spouse had been allergic to cats. I don't know if he wanted me to say I would have rehomed my kitten or dumped my then-boyfriend, but the truth was, our relationship wouldn't have gotten very far if he were allergic. A great deal of our together time was spent in my apartment (he lived with his parents), so it just wouldn't have happened.

[ellen_fremedon]

So, LW shows up EVERY SINGLE MONTH to tell Sally to rehome her pets or feed them to coyotes, dismiss her concern for them, and possibly belittle her reproductive choices. (That last one's a guess, but why even mention that Sally is childless?)

And LW is baffled that Sally is not bending over backwards to make her home more hospitable to her.

[cereta]

Oh, God, is this my life. My brother has accused my mother of choosing her cats over her grandchildren (although he's the allergic one, not them, and she is always more than happy to visit him, a whopping ten miles away). He even got mad when I got a cat and was living 1700 miles away, as if he had visited me even once before then. Now, my cats are the "reason" no one drives the 3.5 hours to visit me, ever, for any special occasion (my sister's husband is also allergic). As if they'd ever visit if I didn't have cats, and as if I'm supposed to give up love and companionship on the off chance that they might decide to visit some day.

[lilysea]

Now, my cats are the "reason" no one drives the 3.5 hours to visit me, ever, for any special occasion

...

Has the thought that they could visit you at

a nearby cafe
a nearby restaurant
a nearby beach
a nearby lake
a nearby public park

never occurred to these people?

[cereta]

Nope. The (biological) cousin I had met a year before drove down from Chicago wile on a visit to relatives there and stayed at a hotel so we could meet, but the ONLY thing that has ever brought more than my mother to me is my wedding. In 25+ years. Even when my baby was born, I drove her to Cincinnati so my family could meet her. It's just kind of how things are in my family.

[lilysea]

That sounds... kinda inequitable/unfair towards you. :(

[cereta]

I am mostly zen about it. I honestly don't know what will happen when my mom passes away, since we stay at her house during visits, but we've built a nice local "family," so we won't be alone.

[mommy]

LW seems a bit confused on how to be a good house guest. Harassing her sister for a weekend every month is terrible manners. If LW knows in advance that her sister has pets that LW's daughter is allergic to, then a better response is to adjust her plans by renting a room in a pet-free hotel and interacting with her sister in a pet-free locations such as movie theaters, museums, and restaurants. This way, LW's daughter will not suffer from allergies.

It doesn't matter if pets are family. The pets have a home. LW is requesting that the pets be kicked out of their home for a weekend a month, every month.

[kutsuwamushi]

Yes, the child's health is paramount.

The LW thinks that her sister is picking her pets over her niece, but the LW is actually picking her convenience over her sister's happiness. She should get over it and book a hotel. It's unreasonable to demand someone get rid of their loved pets for the sake of a once-a-month visit.

[ambyr]

Not addressed anywhere in the letter: does the sister WANT once-a-month house guests? Because wow does that sound like a major imposition, and I like houseguests.

[ayebydan]

This is my dog's home. He has never and will never be boarded. In the past one member of the family has missed out on gatherings in other parts of the country because one of us must stay with the dogs. They are our responsibility.

I would be outraged if someone asked me to put them outside because they were visiting. Perhaps sister can help with motel/hotel costs to allow them to visit or perhaps sister with the daughter could help finance the visits only happening at her end.

As people have said getting rid of anything that could hurt the child can take weeks.

And if anyone suggested once that I get rid of my pup who makes my life so much better it would be the only time they tried it.