6 weeks pregnant and boyfriend has a dangerous dog
Hi everyone, as the title mentioned I am 6 weeks pregnant and in the trenches of morning sickness.
My boyfriend has a very large Australian cattle dog that is extremely reactive but also has a bite record. He’s had it for 3.5 years and in the last few months alone it has bitten him once, bitten his brother twice, bitten another dog and tried to attack me twice (but always slightly missed thankfully) and when I say bite I mean drawing blood and immediate bruising etc. The attacks seem to come out of nowhere with no growling or anything beforehand.
He always said when we have children he’d rehome the dog if it seemed like it was going to be a dangerous situation.
Now I am 6 weeks pregnant, a very much planned and wanted baby. Yesterday I tried to step over the baby gate that we use to keep the dog in the kitchen during the day and he jumped up and grabbed my wrist and shook it very hard. He would have broken the skin but he sort of missed and only grabbed my sleeve. He then paced back and fourth in front of the baby gate snapping and lunging at me every now and then to keep me away from it. In the end I managed to convince it to go outside and then I locked it in the garden and called my boyfriend to come home from work and take him somewhere else.
After he finished work we discussed this and I said I am no longer willing to live with a dog I am scared of, I am not being pregnant with this dog around and I am certainly not having a small child around it. He says he can’t bring himself to get rid of the dog and he thinks an abortion is the next best step.
What would you do? I’m absolutely devastated. I want this baby very much but it would be extremely irresponsible to have it around this dog and if we split up the baby would still be around the dog when he had custody etc. It’s just not safe. I need some advice please.
UPDATE - thank you for your advice everyone, I think he was downplaying the danger in his head because he really does love the dog and wanted to do right by it and not give up on him. I think he’d convinced himself that he’d be able to keep the dog and baby separate but after reading it all in black and white he has had a very difficult realisation and contacted the breeder today to take him back ❤️