u/Sigh_master1109

I’ll try not to make this too long but it’s kind of a lot.

His wife died a few months ago. The three of us have been friends on and off since they moved in. She and I were close sometimes. She was difficult in some ways. She also had on again off again relationships with her family. She mostly didn’t speak to me the last couple years. She got jealous of a friend of mine who was at my place for a bonfire one evening and he came over and had a beer with us and I guess stayed too long. He told me this. Her and I never talked about it. I asked her about it one time when she was out in the yard, why she wasn’t talking to me, and she just gave me a dirty look and told me she’s been busy.

During times when we were close she would complain about their marriage. I only ever heard her side. She complained about their sex life. She was disrespectful to him frequently in front of me and he never did that to her. He never told me anything negative about her. A few times in the summertime when all the windows were open I would hear her yelling at him. I never heard him yell back.

He did low key flirt with me sometimes if it was just me and him. I never took him seriously. He likes to joke. He’s from the Caribbean and is different from anyone else I know. He’s a very hard worker. He works 6 days a week most weeks. He’s always working around his house and his yard and gardens look great. He was a professional football player (soccer) in his home country. He’s been a soccer coach for kids in our town for a long time. He’s on a soccer team. He’s also a drummer in a reggae band. He’s interesting and philosophical. I like a lot of things about him.

I’ve been on my own since I’ve known them. He has always helped me with things in my yard/gardens when I’ve asked him. He knows how to fix and do a lot of things. I paid him to do some things and I paid him to cut my grass for years. As neighbors we have had each others backs.

We have hung out a few times. Mostly sitting on my deck having a couple drinks and playing cards or whatever. He told me he wants to be my boyfriend. Yea he said that. He told me all the things he likes about me etc. etc. and how he has respected me throughout the years for this and that. He said very nice things. Even though he has flirted with me as I said, I was not expecting that. He also made it very clear that he is interested in me sexually.

Therein lies the problem for me. I am not at all interested in him that way. Not even a little. I actually wish I was. I have thought about it since he sprung this on me and I’m just not and I really don’t think I ever could be. It would be kind of ideal to be in a full on relationship with someone who lives right next-door and who I would never need to live with.

When he sprung this on me I told him I am not interested in that kind of relationship. I didn’t say specifically with him but that is the truth. I would like that kind of relationship, but not with him. I would love for us to be good friends and hang out and help each other out. He said he was OK with that but he also thinks that if he just keeps trying I will change my mind. I told him I am not going to change my mind, but he continues to flirt with me when we are hanging out in a joking around kind of way and I just laugh.

He has been very kind and helping me with things and doing very nice things like calling to check on me when we’ve had scary storms lately. I really do like him and those things are nice, but now I feel like maybe it’s not fair of me to let him continue to do these kinds of nice things for me when I have no intention of letting it turn into the kind of relationship he wants.

I’m not sure what to do in this situation.

I know this is probably going to get very long, because it’s a lot. I am very close friends with a couple who are actually extended family. It’s actually my ex and his girlfriend. It’s a long story and besides the point but we’ve been good friends for almost 10 years now. I go to their house pretty much every week and we hang out games etc. they are basically good people, a little rough around the edges, but decent and good hearted. I have a problem with how she is treating their new puppy.

they are not good dog owners. They had one dog already and she is about four years old. She is not housebroken and is about 100% overweight. She’s a small dog, I believe some kind of small terrier and Shih Tzu mix but she is extremely fat. This poor little dogs body is round. She’s got this big round body and these little tiny legs. She basically lives on treats. That used to bother me quite a bit and I used to try giving them advice without sounding like a know it all or sticking my nose into their business, but often it is really painful to see how this poor dog struggles with her activities of daily living because of her weight and unhealthy diet. They are just seriously clueless about this. My friend frequently talks about how she’s never had a dog before who wasn’t housebroken and who wouldn’t eat dog food. I think this is the first time in her adult life that she’s had a dog. The only other time I think she had a dog was when she lived with her parents and that dog was fine according to her, but I’m sure her parents trained it. The dog has also not been spayed. She has frequent health problems and they struggle at times financially.

I’m not a dog expert but I’m pretty good at knowing how to deal with them and I’ve had dogs of my own. I try to give them subtle advice and sometimes more than subtle. My friend will agree with me when I tell her about her dogs health etc. but she still just continues to go back to her old ways with her. They love their dogs and are good to them in many ways but don’t know how to train them for shit.

To make matters worse they adopted another dog three months ago. She is a cute and sweet brindle puppy, probably pitbull mix. A very sweet and smart dog. she is also very rambunctious. normal for a puppy obviously. Now this new dog is at least twice as tall as the first chubby dog and she gets excited and wants to play and mostly the chubby dog isn’t having it. It was a little rocky in the beginning but kind of normal dog stuff. The puppy also destroys things when the dogs are left alone. I brought an ex pen to their house to keep her in while they are gone but they never used it and now she’s too big she’ll just climb right over it. They have talked about getting a crate but they don’t have the money right now so the problem continues. I believe increate training dogs properly but in the back of my mind I’m afraid if they get the crate she will end up in there being punished most of the time, even though my friend says she knows that’s not supposed to and not going to happen.

When I try to give advice about how to handle this situation with the dog she listens to me and agrees but then doesn’t change anything. So now she is always frustrated with the new puppy.

Basically every interaction she has with this new puppy now is negative. It kind of started at the beginning because my ex is the one who picked the dog and I don’t think it’s really what she wanted but she went with it. For a while it seemed like she was getting attached to the new puppy but now all she does is yell at it. I’m not exaggerating every time she pays any kind of attention to this dog it’s yelling. she says the dog doesn’t listen but she has no idea how to talk to the dog. She doesn’t use single word commands and it’s all negative enforcement. She yells at the puppy before she does something wrong, as she does something wrong and after the dog stops doing the wrong thing. She also expects the dog to understand English, and that the dog should know better and that the dog should also know that she’s supposed to go to the bathroom outside, even though chubby dog goes in the house.

The puppy went from being so sweet and smart and cute and now she’s just “the dog”. My friend literally never calls her by her name, just calls her the dog. I advocate for the dog when I’m there and try to tell my friend that yelling at the dog gets her more fired up and less likely to listen but she says the only way she listens is if she yells at her, but she doesn’t listen, she reacts with more energy. She jumps and you can’t touch her without her going crazy and she gets the zoomies and she runs over the chubby dog. I know the stuff is annoying but she’s a puppy! you chose her she didn’t choose you and she doesn’t know any better. My friend agrees with some of that but she also thinks the dog is just bad.

So now when I go over there on our weekly what used to be fun evening, it makes me nervous and it makes me sad. My ex is mostly sweet to the dog but he will also yell at her and he plays rough with her and he doesn’t train her either. The dog fetches like a champ just naturally but he thinks he trained her to do that and brags about it. it’s just one thing after another and it’s bothering me and I don’t know what to do about it. I tell my friend that if she would calm down, speak to the dog in a normal voice and use one word commands and the same word for the same thing all the time and tell her she’s a good dog when she does the thing that she wants her to do, if it’s an accident, the dog would be trained by now because she’s very smart. But she does insist the dog doesn’t listen and she obviously doesn’t like her. They also don’t have a collar on the dog. Neither of the dogs have any kind of identification on them. I don’t see chubby dog ever getting out and running away but the puppy definitely has energy to do that. Just another thing that concerns me.

Technically I know it’s none of my business except for the fact that I am there one evening a week and it’s constant with the yelling and I can’t take it anymore. I know my friend’s going to get mad when I tell her this but it’s either that or I’m just gonna stop going over there and then I worry about the future with this puppy now anyway. It’s not going to go well. They don’t know what breed she is and she might end up being 40 pounds and then she’s still going to be pooping and peeing in the house and chewing stuff up. They don’t know how to train her and they can’t afford to pay someone to train her and they don’t even realize that this is a problem. She recently said she doesn’t know how she ended up with two dogs that can’t be housebroken. I said to her “how did you?” but she doesn’t get it.

So I’ve been laying awake since 4 am trying to figure out what to do about this. I feel like I have to say something to try to make her understand what she’s doing is wrong but she’s not going to like hearing it of course. For me this is seriously a dealbreaker and I’m willing to die on this hill , but if I just stop being friends with them, which is not something I want to do anyway, and stop going to their house every week there are still gonna be major problems with this poor sweet puppy. I don’t know what to do. I love dogs and think they are God‘s gift to mankind and I can’t stand to see this.

Trying to do some minor home repairs. I'm not handy really but I can follow directions and I have some tools.

Next to the trim by my kitchen window there is a toggle switch that is too close to the trim to put a cover on. I really don't want to take the trim down because I feel like that's just gonna open a whole Pandora's box.

I tried to eyeball it but I did it wrong. Hoping someone has a trick to help me do this.