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The original was posted on /r/bestofredditorupdates by /u/megathrowswayphia on 2023-11-03 00:33:00.
Hi everyone, I am OP. someone reposted my first post and update here and now that more has happened figured I’d post the update here too with the first two posts. first time posting here so please forgive any formatting errors!
CONTEXT INFO
I am a lead Veterinary Technician at a large animal hospital within an animal shelter and have 10 years experience in the field
Brachycephalic means shortened skull. Brachycephalic dog breeds include pugs, french bulldogs, english bulldogs and other breeds with flat faces
article about pug health problems, which apply to other short faced breeds
IVDD is intervertebral disc disease
Otitis is an ear infection
Dermatitis is a skin disease causing itching, hair loss, and pain
Trigger warnings: childhood trauma, toxic family, abuse, animal neglect, animal death, animal bite
Mood Spoiler: ready to move on
Original Post: April 26th 2023 by myself in r/AmItheAsshole
AITA for telling my boyfriend he is financially cut off from me and I will provide zero help if he buys a pug puppy?
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So this situation involves me (28F) and BF (27M)
we have been together for about two years and some change. we live together and split all the main bills but the rest of our paychecks we keep separate and spend how we wish. typically this works fine. but despite him earning the same, sometimes more, than me he is not great at budgeting (he gets takeout almost every day, buys coffee out every single day, sends his god awful abusive mom money whenever she asks, etc) and I’ve had to help him out with money multiple times
but the real issue started when he brought up wanting to buy a pug puppy. now, I work in veterinary medicine (lead VT at my clinic) and frequently see first-hand the suffering these dogs go through due to bad breeding and even just their breed standard anatomy. plus they are prone to so many chronic expensive health issues. and Ive found over the years that no matter what the other person says, if you work in my field and they get a pet, a lot of the harder care aspects (like medical) will fall on you. and honestly, I find buying a pug at all to be unethical and something I am not okay with. I certainly wouldnt be willing to bring them into my clinic and shoulder the responsibility, which I know would happen. I love my BF, but this is a guy who thought neutering a dog involved removing their penis and even says he knows “nothing about animals until I met you”. who is going to have to manage the situation when this dog has chronic allergic dermatitis/otitis or IVDD or one of the other million issues they typically end up having? Me. I already know it.
I explained all this to him and he got quite upset with me for “completely shutting down what he wants”. I told him a small-med dog isnt out of the question, just NOT a pug or other brachycephalic dog and not a puppy. They are far too much of a time and effort commitment than either of us can provide and wouldnt be good for anyone. I dont like to admit that I pulled the “this is literally my career field and I know what Im talking about” when he kept repeating “well you dont KNOW that”. because yeah, I kinda do.
I am also not proud of this, but I told him if he did get the pug puppy I would never help him out again with money and I would give him zero help with the puppy, including bringing them into my clinic as an employee-affiliated pet for at-cost care (cheaper but by no means free) or medications. he was pretty shocked when I said this and left our apartment to go cool-off. I guess he told our mutual friend because they told me via text I was being a bitch about the whole thing and “must hate animals”. all my coworkers agree with me, but I know they are obviously biased
AITA?
edit to add: this mutual friend was his best friend before we started dating and they became my friend also. or at least I thought they were. while what they said is shitty and not okay I have a hard time believing my bf actually called me that to him. even when we argue (not often, but happens) he has never used any language like that or anything even remotely disrespectful. I would not tolerate that. he is immature at times, but never like that
another edit to address some common things in the comments:
my clinic is actually PART of a shelter. I talked at length with him about how we could foster one of the dogs from work who was compatible with us and our lifestyle (size, energy, age, cat friendly, etc) before adopting and he was not happy with this. he also was not interested in mixes with pug who didnt have the extremely short face due to “not looking like a pug anymore”. that’s when I got a little more forceful with my ultimatum
if we got a dog TOGETHER then I would be happy to take on the lion’s share of things like medical care because this is a pet we got together and just makes sense. I got my cat before dating him, so MY cat, and have never asked him to shoulder any aspect of her care other than feeding her if I was going to be home late from work or something similar
we have never had an issue like this before so that’s one reason Im a bit… lost on if I was really in the wrong or not. I appreciate all the comments a lot. I’ll be in the comments but I think this address the most common inquiries
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Info from comments:
What if he rescued a pug or other brachycephalic breed? Or opted for a pug mix?
Me: this was brought up and while it does alleviate the ethical issue of purchasing one, a pug being bought from a breeder vs adopted at a rescue does not change what health issues they will have. and he didn’t really seem interested in dogs who were mixed enough to not be extremely brachycephalic, he only wants that purebred pug look
why are you so against adopting a pug, they dont deserve to sit in shelters either
Me: pugs in shelters or rescues dont “sit waiting to be adopted”. most pug rescues have waitlists a mile long. whenever pugs (even mixed) are up for adoption at the shelter my clinic is part of the phones ring off the hook asking about them. and it still does not change that I would end up responsible for their medical care, a big part of why I am not okay with it
Context Comment:
I grew up with rescue dogs, one of which I was the main person working with his behavioral rehabilitation (had extreme resource aggression at 8 weeks old) and previously worked at a shelter for 6 years which specialized in behavior case dogs and determining their ability to be rehabilitated and released into the community and been a vet tech at my current clinic/shelter for about 5 years. I KNOW I am more experienced with dog care than him. and that doesnt make me better or smarter or anything like that. but when it comes to animal care? I feel like my opinion should be taken seriously because that is literally my career field. he works in a utility company. If we ever needed to figure out an issue in that area, I would listen to him. but animals, especially dogs? that’s MY area of expertise. that just seems like the most logical way to do it
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Judgment: Not the A-hole
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UPDATE posted April 28 2023 by myself in r/AmItheAsshole
UPDATE: AITA for telling my boyfriend he is financially cut off from me and I will provide zero help if he buys a pug puppy?
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So I didnt dump him after we had a looong talk. could we still breakup? yes. but we arent there yet and him admitting he fucked up is a big part of that. and no, a pug puppy is not happening
turns out the dog he had as a child (D) was a pug, and was devastated when D died. he never really liked talking about D, and I never pried
He cried a lot once he started talking about D, thought D was always very healthy, so when I was going on about the health issues with pugs he assumed that it was overblown and I was just being overly cautious, since D was healthy and he wanted a dog that looked like him, brought on after mom had found his old collar
I got a gut feeling, so I kept trying to as kindly as possible ask questions about D. how often they took him to the vet, if he had any photos, etc. turns out he couldnt remember a single time this dog went to a vet (if a vet never diagnoses an issue it doesnt exist, right?) and once he found some old photos I pointed out the dog CLEARLY had ocular issues (likely untreated KCS with ulceration) and eventually went blind, sat in a way that indicated hip issues, even remembered a time that the dog COLLAPSED after playing in the yard but he got up again a while later so his mom said he was fine. once I spelled all this out to him he looked like someone had slapped him across the face and just said he was so sorry, he was just like all those awful owners I tell him about, etc
he was a kid! he shouldnt have been expected to manage that dog’s veterinary care. but now that hes an adult he needs to look at the situation logically and I was extremely hurt he gave zero shits about my professional opinion. I get that enough from owners at work, dont need it from my BF. He apologized and said he doesnt think he is ready f…
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