Boyfriend’s dog is vicious and untrained, he wants me to move in.
I’ve been with my boyfriend for 2 years. Boyfriend is great but his dog (more so his parent’s dog, but my boyfriend lives at home) is a nightmare. I know it’s down to poor training, but I can’t enter the room without the dog rushing over and jumping up, biting and barking at me. This goes on for the entire visit. They say he’s ‘playing’ but he will bite and chew my sleeves while growling and not letting go, bite at my hands, won’t let me walk anywhere and just spend the whole time barking. I had bite marks all over my hands the last time I visited and my legs had scratches and long vertical bruises where he’d jumped up so much. He will even do it when I’m sitting down and will jump across the couches and go straight for me. I feel so awkward because he won’t let me move and just viciously barks at me like some rabid monster and the whole time they don’t do anything about it. Apparently he does it with everyone who doesn’t live there and they think that this behaviour is acceptable, I’ve seen the dog do it while the 90 year old Grandad was visiting, who almost fell over in the process.
He ruins my clothes every time I visit, scratches my legs from jumping up, chews holes in my sleeves. It’s gotten to the point where I will wait in the car because I’m petrified of that dog. Prior to this I had no problem with the dog, my family used to own dogs which were great and every other dog I have met has not behaved this way at all. He doesn’t get any correction from behaving this way, the parents will just stand there calling his name but it doesn’t work. I was round for a barbecue the other day and after biting and barking at me non stop it sat next to me while I was trying to eat and spent the whole time barking like a maniac because it wanted my food, jumping up at the table, and they did nothing about it, other than saying I was annoying him because I wasn’t eating my food. I had stopped eating because it made me uncomfortable trying to eat with a dog jumping up and barking in my ear for 10 minutes straight. I’m not one to scold someone’s else’s dog as I don’t really feel like that’s up to me. They’re the type of people who see the behaviour as ‘cute’ and make up little personality quirks for him like ‘oh he’s just missed you’ or ‘he just wants your attention’, instead of facing the fact that their dog is untrained and an asshole. He will just be chilling in the room and the second I walk in he guns for me and starts barking, jumping up, biting. It is relentless and has made me fearful of him.
My boyfriend brought the dog over to my house for the first (and last time) as his parents were redecorating, and the dog spent the entire time barking and trashing the place, finding anything to chew while also trying to attack me. He will pick up plastic bags and try to eat them, and growl if you try and take it away. In fact, he will pick up anything and chew it, shoes, pens, bags, anything! My whole house reeked after he visited too.
I’ve just never known a more horrible dog! It is a cockapoo so I don’t know if it’s to do with cross breeding but the dog is a monster. My boyfriend and I are supposed to be moving out soon and struggling to find a place so he has suggested moving in with his parents to save money to buy a place and it’s a lovely offer but I do not think I would be able to live with that dog, and I know by saying so, I will be labelled as a dog hating villain by his parents. I don’t know if I’m the problem but this dog’s behaviour is insane. He is un neutered, which explains a lot. I don’t take it personally from the dog at all because at the end of the day he is just a dog, and I’m sure he would be a nice companion if they had put in the time or money into getting him trained.
UPDATE -
Thank you for all of the responses, I didn’t expect to get so many! I’m glad that I am not the one being unreasonable, however I also understand that I do need to grow a backbone in this situation.
I should add that my boyfriend does spend most of the time round my house when I’m not at work, he only stays at home with his parents when I am working. I very rarely stay the night round his house anymore, I used to when we first met but he realised that I was uncomfortable. The dog is a more of a family dog, so I only really have to see it when I do have to visit my boyfriends house for events/family visits, which thankfully are now rare and the reason why I now wait in the car when he has to visit home to pick something up. I’ve come to realise that it is sort of an unspoken subject between us that I have a problem with the dog, and I will be making that more apparent to him when we have a talk about it. He has said in the past that the dog was previously trained when he was younger (they’ve had him since he was a puppy), and that his parents just continued to spoil it, but I do think that was just an excuse on his behalf for poor behaviour.
I am going to speak with him and make it clear that it’s not a good idea to move in with his parents. Although we would be saving money in the long run, I don’t think I or the relationship would be able to last in that environment. He seems to think that the dog will get “used to me”, but quite frankly I don’t want to take that risk and be confined to hiding in a bedroom and risk having all of my things ruined. If the dog was trained then there wouldn’t be this issue. I’m also going to make it clear that I do not wish to own any dogs in the future, as the behaviour of his dog is clear that he is not committed to putting in the training, time and effort that a dog requires.