I am so incredibly tired of having this discussion with my parents. I am just completely infuriated right now. Sigh.
My parents have decided that they want an English Bulldog. This is very, very bad.
My parents have NO regard for animals whatsoever. All living things are completely disposable to them. Growing up, every dog we had ended up living outside, after it failed to housetrain itself. My parents got pets totally on a whim, and when they got tired of them, they ignored them, neglected them, or dumped them. Growing up, all of my pets were denied vet care. If I had a mouse, or a hamster, or a rabbit, my parents made me keep it in a tiny cage, in a garage or basement. It was never allowed out, fed the cheapest and the bare minimum, and if it got sick, tough luck. Going to the vet was reserved ONLY for dogs, and ONLY in life or death situations. Sometimes not even then.
When I became a teenager, I started babysitting and doing random jobs to pay for the pets, hoping it would give me a little more say in their treatment if I covered at least some of their expenses. Not so. My parents still routinely neglected and abandoned their pets when they became a hassle. Only when I was old enough to get a REAL job, pay for everything, and lock my pets in my tiny bedroom did their care improve. Entirely by myself, on a crappy minimum wage job, I took the best care of the animals as I could.
Even though I spent literally all of my own time and money JUST on my pets, my parents spent all of their time doing teir best to convince me that I was a horrible pet owner. They would spend months making little comments here and there, ultimately convincing me that I abused my animals and neglected them, until they effectively brainwashed me into thinking it was all true (keep in mind, I'm a VERY young teenager at this point- 14 or so.) and then would convince me that the ONLY solution was to allow them to take my animal and dump them somewhere in the country. They would actually manage to convince me that if we took them to a shelter, they would euthanize them immedately and their only "real chance" was to let them "be free" in the country. I was so young, I really didn't know better...and to this day, I still feel that no matter what I do for my pets, I'm still neglecting them and am a horrible pet owner. Anyway, I'm getting off track- suffice it to say, my parents were emotionally (and sometimes physically) abusive to me and my pets, in many ways that I won't get into here since it's not the point of this post.
The point is, I can't figure out how to talk them out of getting this new dog. They have two dogs now. One is an 11 year old miniature poodle, Sugar. They got her from a pet store. The other is an 8 year old retreiver mix, Maddison, whom they got from a shelter. Both of these dog's lives are crap.
For the first 6 years of her life, Maddison lived on the end of a 6 foot leash in my parent's laundry room. She was taken outside a couple of times a day to potty, if they remembered- if they didn't remember, and she had an accident, she was beaten for it. She had no toys, was never walked, and essentially never left that tiny laundry room and her 6 foot leash. Her muscles started to atrophy and she started to have joint problems at a very young age because of this.
They eventually moved to a new house, and had her a pen built in the backyard. Normally I'm against dogs being kept outside in a run, but this was actually a huge improvement for her. She could at least move around. They built a covered deck for her, and put two dog houses under that, and spread hay in the pen on a regular basis to keep it from getting muddy. A huge improvement...but she's still living her life alone in a pen. She gets literally no attention...just a few cups of food throws over the fence of her pen every day. No pat on the head, no nothing.
About this time, Maddison started to have a skin problem. I don't know if she has mange, or a food allergy, or what...but she started losing her hair in patches and her skin turned gray and scaley and she smelled HORRIBLE. She was this way for two years...completely miserable...and they never took her to a vet. They absolutely refused to bother. Her hips were also crap at this point. She could run only with great difficulty, and she limped constantly. Partially from being fed crappy food her whole life, partially from rarely being able to walk more than 3 or 4 feet in any direction for most of her life.
Sugar, their poodle, still gets to live inside, but only because she literally house trained herself and doesn't bother anyone. Her teeth are rotten to the point that you can smell her mouth if you get within 10 feet of her. She's a very sweet little dog, but she smells so bad it's difficult to pet her. They have her groomed maybe once or twice a year. She gets so matted and disgusting that she can't see and can hardly walk, and then they take her to be groomed. Then, when the groomer is unable to brush her out and give her a pretty poodle cut and has to shave her, they throw a fit and badmouth that groomer to everyone they know and go on and on about how the poor groomers are "too lazy to do their damn job."
My parents give her lots of attention for the couple of weeks after she's groomed, when she's smelling nice and decent to look at. As soon as her hair starts to grow again, they treat her like crap and start ignoring her again. Sugar is so incredibly attention starved.
Sugar also has seizures that she's never been to the vet about. If one of the dogs does something my parents don't like, they beat them mercilessly. When I was living at home, I got into several physical altercations with my parents just from trying to keep them off of the dogs. Whenever Sugar suspected she was going to get a beating, she would snap at them in fear- which caused them to get angry and beat her harder. Soemtimes, she gets so scared, that she has a seizure...her muscles tense up, she flails a little, and she usually defecates on herself. Usually that just makes them more angry with her. Luckily, Sugar has learned to behave perfectly in every way around them, so they rarely have reason to get angry with her. Still, she lives a pretty miserable life.
Until a few months ago, they ate Ol' Roy or Kibbles and Chunks. With LOTS of persuasion, I convinced my mother to feed them Nature's Recipe Sensitive Skin, hoping that it would help Maddison's skin problem. I also convinced her to give Maddison a cheap glucosamine supplement to hopefully help with her joints. It was the best I could do, since they won't buy "expensive" foods for them, and they won't take them to the vet.
Well, it's done alot for Maddison. Her coat has mostly grown back, and after a few months of getting glucosamine she can walk normally again and barely limps. She looks like a different dog. Sugar's teeth are looking better, as good as rotten teeth can look...so I'm happy at least with that improvement. It was more than I expected.
Although, now, Maddison is getting fat- she gets NO exercise, and my mother gives her FIVE CUPS of food a day. She says she "feels sorry for her." Then she goes on to tell me how thin my dogs are (no, they're healthy.
) and "there you go again neglecting your animals, Brittany. You never did take care of anything. You barely take care of yourself." [&o]
Anyway, they now keep saying that when Maddison and Sugar die, they're going to get an English Bulldog. They act like they're HOPING they'll die soon, so that they can get a new puppy. [
] I've done everything I can to convince them not to, and if they do to at least try to rescue or go through a responsible breeder. They say they'll "look into it." I know they won't- my parents would NEVER submit themselves to scrutiny from a rescue or a breeder. They'd try it once, call it a waste of time, and go to Petland or answer an ad in the paper.
And more important than WHERE they get the dog, is the fact that they don't need another dog at all. ESPECIALLY not one like an English Bulldog....what are they going to do when they end up with some poorly bred dog from a pet store, who is old at 6 and can't breathe and has heart problems? What then? Most likely, they'll cry about it, convince themselves that theres nothing they can do, and let it die. They NEVER take animals to the vet, ever.
My parents live in a very strange little world. They emotionally abuse their children and their pets. They are upper middle class yuppies who think they are entitled to EVERYTHING and responsible for NOTHING. Whenever a problem arises, regardless of what kind of problem it is, they cry and whine and mope and convince themselves that there is NOTHING that they can do, that it isn't their responsibility, and it's entirely out of their hands. If you disagree with them, you are wrong. The last time I got into an argument about them not taking their dogs to the vet, my mother ended it with "Brittany, you want to spend your money on getting your dogs vet care, and that's fine. I don't feel that that's an important thing to do, so I don't do it. We just have different priorities, and that's okay. You spend your money on what you want, and I'll spend mine on what I want."
And she actually believes this- that if she lets one of the animals in her care die from lack of vet care, well, that's just her "life choice!" It isn't HER responsibility to get these animals vet care, SHE can't be held responsible for what happens to them...she'll cry, get upset, and worry when something is wrong...but she really and trully makes herself beleive that there's nothing she can do about it.
Anyway, I'll end my parent rant here- I could go on for days about how crazy and abusive they are. I just wish there was some way I could convince them not to do this. The dogs they have now have no lives to speak of, and now they want another. I am just beyond upset. [&o]