Wow, did I screw up!

[Turd Ferguson]

So we have two dogs that we neglected to have fixed that had seven puppies. We had them fixed shortly after so it would never happen again. We were lucky to get rid of six of them but we were stuck with the seventh one, which was a royal pain in the ass. She was extremely difficult to housetrain, piddled in the floor anytime you walked by her (or talked to her) and rough housed non-stop with the parent dogs making any attempt at relaxing a futile gesture.

Our back yard is fenced in, and is now pot holed due to the fact that this dog LOVES to dig. She doesn't even have to have a reason to dig. You leave her unsupervised for three minutes and she's filthy and there's a big ass hole in the yard. This digging has led the otherwise good parents to start digging as well, leaving the yard looking more and more like shit. My girlfriend was complaining about how our yard looks like hell and how we need to fix it up, and I mention that the yard will always look like hell until we get rid of the damn thing.

So, my parents have three min-pins. They agreed to take the puppy (now eight months old). For a couple weeks, the puppy gets along with the min-pins and even behaves. But, now, all of a sudden THOSE dogs are digging. AND barking their asses off. Apparently their neighbor also recently had a stroke and her husband had died so she wasn't able to sleep at night because of this damn dog.

So my parents told me that the dog had to go NOW. I was in a lose-lose situation. I couldn't keep the dog at my parents house, and I couldn't bring the dog back home (the parent dogs had since straightened up since she left). So, I took the dog to the pound, hoping that she'd find a good home in the country.

I kinda freaked out a little bit that evening when my gf's daughter asked repeatedly if we could go to my parents and visit this dog. So, I said that she was given to my stepdad's uncle. This excuse worked pretty well for her. Due to a lot of things on my mind, I neglected to mention to my gf what I had actually done.

Flash forward to last night. I had just gotten back the night before from driving her mother back to Texas from Kentucky. A two-thousand mile round trip in less than 36 hours. It had been a while since she acted really happy to see me and we had a wonderful twelve hours together.

Then, out of nowhere, she asked if the dog really went to my stepdad's uncles. Being one of those people that were brought up being told that the truth would set you free, I explained to her what I had done and why.

Jesus H. Christ.

Now she's not even speaking to me. She even took a bunch of my birthday presents and threw them in the trash. She said there were now trust issues, which makes absolutely NO sense since I told her the truth. Now she thinks I'm cheating on her and all this bullshit.

So I managed to take a time of complete happiness and turn it into anger and loathing within a five minutes time period

Sorry about this big wall of text, but I needed to vent and all of my friends are asleep and I have no idea what to do to remedy this situation.

 

[trampledamage]

Nothing you can do. Either she'll calm down and understand this was a one-time thing or she won't.

The trust issue is not because you now told the truth when she point-blank asked, but because you didn't tell her before and you lied to her daughter.

 

[SmoothieX]

My first question: Did you try obedience training before giving up on this dog?

What kinda of dog is the troublemaker anyway?

 

[Turd Ferguson]

My first question: Did you try obedience training before giving up on this dog?

What kinda of dog is the troublemaker anyway?

Not exactly, but we did try working with her extensively using a variety of methods from giving her treats when she was good to the rolled up newspaper to shock collars and nothing would work.

The father was a Beagle/Jack Russell and the mother was a German Shepherd/Dachshund.

 

[K'Ehleyr]

I think a combination of apology and firmness is called for.
Try "I'm sorry I didn't tell you, but it was my responsibility to re-house this pup. I tried my parents and upset not only them but their dogs too. If it had gone to my uncles, no doubt I'd be going back again in a weeks time to re-house the dog again. I decided the pound would be a better option as they have experience of re-housing pups to the best experienced owners. The puppy would be happy with a good home and I wouldn't piss off any more relatives and spend more time running around apologising to family members. Sorry ~ can I take you and your daughter out for dinner?" *winning smile*

 

[Cakes488]

Put rocks in the holes she's digging and cover them up again...they don't like that. I've read many dog training books over the years and there are various ways to combat this problem.

The thing is you need to do is really put in the work. And you have to be very very consistent. Just like with disciplining and "training"/teaching children there are ways that are effective and not every way will suit your situation so you need to do some homework.

I've found people to be very uneducated with animals (not saying you) ...they are clueless on how to solve behavioral problems. So far I've never met an animal that I can't train...my first dog I found stray and she bit children...there was no way around this so I bought her a muzzle to wear whenver there were children around..she wore it as well as cordoning her off. There are solutions to these problems most of the time...but you need to find it and really do it. Consistency is the key.

 

[freak]

To the OP: I have realized and learned from past experiences to never and I mean NEVER use a shock collar on a dog! It's inhumane and seems to be a "quick fix" when training a dog. I try to never use a quick fix anymore when training dogs.
Anyway, sorry to hear that she's no longer speaking to you..but you did all that you could have done. I don't get people nowadays anymore. You tell the truth from a "white lie" and they spit all over you when you do. I agree that you have to be firm but polite at the same time when telling her about this dog.

 

[tharpdevenport]

And if she doesn't get over it, just laugh about it and go, "Muwahahahaha!!!". Might as well.