More than a few times, I've consulted with a dog owner that is getting demands that they get rid of their dog. And many times, the problem is that the owner is in a troubled relationship with someone they live with.
I spoke with someone several years ago with this exact problem. His dogs were fighting because he was fighting (arguing) with his live-in girlfriend and her daughters. They would do things around his dogs that would stimulate two of the dogs into fights. It was a troubled home. They vented a lot of this by blaming his dogs. It wasn’t the dogs; it was his troubled relationships. They wanted him to put the down or get rid of them. He told me he had considered ending his life over it. Yeah, it was that bad. I told him it wasn’t his job to make other people happy, and especially not doing it by harming himself or his dogs. I told him that I’d dump the girlfriend and keep the dogs. He did, and the problems went away and so did the dog fights.
My advice: stay away from troubled people. You can’t fix them. They are going to be bad for you and for your dogs. There are a lot of unhinged people in this world, but that isn’t everyone. Find the good ones and dump the neurotic ones.
** Sometimes the problem is the owner, and sometimes the problem is the dogs, but that isn't what this article is about. More about this other stuff later.
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