he does not share my love for dogs

[zingy]

after five years of being together it has hit me that my fiance does not share my love for animals.

 

when i met him i had one cat then shortly got another for a companion for her. he has grown to know them and love them or seemingly so.

 

i also had my little dog, whom i had at the time for going 11 years...so the pets all came with the package.

 

he likes my one male cat and not so much the female cause she is sort of a whiner when she wants canned food, but the male cat is his bud, he sits in his lap, not mine, he routines with him each evening but not me.

 

but i don't mind cause the little girl is my baby anyway....

so in january my dog died after 16 wonderful happy years of loving him and receiving ihs unconditional love.

 

it took all this time for me to find the heart to get another dog..we looked endlessly at the pounds but could not find what we both wanted.

 

so yesterday a friend of my daughters comes to her house with this little chihuahua pug mix about 1-2 years old.

 

she said her kids found him at the school and they called the pound and did what they could to find the owners.

 

so she couldn't bring him back home though, and my daughter knowing of our puppy search called me and told me how much he looked like my other dog!

 

i had to see him and now he is home with me....

my cats however are so tramatized by this that we had to trap one in the bedroom and the other wouldn't even come in the house last night but he finally caught him and we locked him in the house too.

 

the dog slept in a kennel for the night cause i don't know if he is house broken yet or not, plus i did't want him chasing the cats.

 

anyway this a.m. i brought the dog into the bedroom and put him on the bed with my fiance expecting him to be happy to see the little guy..

 

instead he said he didn't want his "dirty ass" on the bed, meaning literally his butt. i mentioned that the cats are always on the bed and he said that at least they clean themselves.

 

i mentioned that my other dog was on the bed, and he said he never liked that either.

 

i felt so hurt and i walked away with my puppy...

i know he spent alot of time driving us around to shelters and looking at dogs, but he seemed so patient each time too.

 

i never felt i could really look i had to rush through each kennel then his patience would wear out finally after one or two places and he would not want to go to anymore.

 

i guess i just needed to vent here cause i don't know what else to do..

i'm already worried because he is so rowdy that the cats will not get use to hm.

 

how can they get use to him if they keep hiding under the bed on the other side of the house?

 

should i keep the dog and get rid of him? LOLOLOLOLOL

[Jamie31]

My husband isn't much of an animal lover either. But I am!!! He looks at animals as "just pets" and "possesions" or "responsibilities" whereas I look at them as part of the family.

 

After we got married, I wanted to get a kitten, because I couldn't stand not having a pet to come home to. But my hubby didn't want to get one. After months, I finally talked him into it and I got one. And now he likes her a lot! I don't know that his attitude about animals has necissarily changed, but he does like our new kitten. And I totally take care of her myself...he never has to feed her or take care of her, so it's turned out to be a good thing for both of us.

 

I don't know why he doesn't care for animals. I mean, It is a scientific fact that people with pets live happier lives. Most men don't really like cats. But I couldn't stand not having a pet.

 

It might just take a while for him to get used to having pets. I really don't know what to tell you to do, since every situation is different. Maybe just have a long talk with him about it and explain to him that your pets mean a lot to you and they are very important in your life. If he loves you, surely he can understand.

 

I justified my case by pointing out to my husband that I accept his motorcycle even though I hate it and wish he didn't have it, so that helped also.

 

Good luck in whatever you decide to do.

[baycityroller]

Zingy I didn't really gather from your post much in the way to indicate that your fiance hasn't been accepting of your pets. In fact, it sounds like he's been quite accomodating even to the point of driving you around to find a new dog. I'd say that's a good thing. Now the fact that he doesn't want your new pup on the bed because of its "butt", I think this is where compromise has to come into play. Perhaps he did allow (tolerate) your previous dog to do this, but from the time you had that dog, until you recently got this new pup, maybe he enjoyed the fact that he didn't have to share the bed linens with an animal. A clean bed is very important to a lot of people and understandably so. Maybe he looks at it like this: it would be digusting for a human to have a bare, unwiped (dogs cannot wipe themselves after they defecate) butt on top of the bed, so why any different for a dog? I know many animal lovers who have a rule that their pets do not go into their bedroom; that that is an off-limits area. Maybe you just need to compromise with him, and respect the fact that he's not an animal lover to the degree that you are and he's within his right to be turned off by an animals bum on the bed linens. Just give him some time. We are all different and that doesn't make us wrong.

[Vivid_29]

Baycityroller made some really good points but I have a different perspective -

 

I think that him not sharing your interest in dogs could actually be a good thing. Would you rather have him act like he loves dogs or would you rather have him be honest -

 

When I first started dating my ex, back in 1999, I started to notice that she started to share the same interests as I. I have a passion for paintball. When we first got together, all of a sudden she loved paintball. I knew that she hated it; I could see straight through her. I knew she was miserable, being out there in the peach grove at midnight, with a million mosquitos biting the hell out of us.

 

Everything I liked, she liked and that was a major turnoff and I started to lose interest, fast.

 

That's just me, so maybe in the longrun, your man not sharing your interest in dogs could be a good thing.

 

Vivid_29