What Started As A Simple Rescue Turned Into Two Years Of Chaos, Love, And A Dog This Redditor Can’t Imagine Giving Up
A dog named Dave started as a random rescue, and somehow turned into the kind of family drama that makes your stomach drop. OP found him abandoned at a dog park, no collar, no microchip, and the longer the search went on, the more it felt like he was never coming back to anyone.
Two years later, Dave isn’t just “in the house,” he’s woven into everyone’s routines. OP’s husband went from annoyed to grudgingly accepting him, OP’s other dog bonded with him, and then the real twist hit when OP’s brother-in-law moved in with his family, bringing an 8-year-old nephew with autism who latched onto Dave so hard he sneaks out of bed at night to sleep in Dave’s dog bed.
So when the move-out plan turns into a quiet proposal to keep Dave, OP finds out the hard way that the rescue was never just a rescue, it was a ticking time bomb.
The little boy instantly bonded with Dave and became deeply attached to him.
Original Post
I found a dog (Dave) that had been abandoned at a dog park. I waited with him until it was dark and then took him home with the intention of trying to find an owner or a rescue that would take him. He had no collar and when I took him to my vet the next day, we couldn’t find a microchip.He was clearly someone’s pet at some point—he’s neutered, housebroken and very friendly. Re-homing him never really panned out, no owner ever turned up despite searching and posting on lost pet pages, and I wasn’t willing to take him to a kill shelter.My husband was annoyed at first, but it’s been almost two years now. My other dog has bonded with him, I’ve fallen in love with him, and even my husband has grudgingly accepted him. As far as I’m concerned, Dave’s part of our family.My brother-in-law and his family relocated to our city and moved in with us while they were closing on a house. My 8-yo nephew has autism and it’s caused him some struggles. His parents had talked about trying to find him a pet but I guess they never found a good fit, at least until they met Dave. He really bonded with Dave, to the point where he sneaks out of bed at night to sleep in Dave’s dog bed with him.Dave is all he talks about and he gets upset whenever we leave the house and don’t take the dogs with us. I guess my SIL talked to my husband about keeping Dave when they move out and my husband told her he’d have to talk to me but I guess there was a strong insinuation that it would okay.I only found out about this proposal when my BIL approached me and thanked me for letting them keep Dave before my husband ever even mentioned it to me. My husband and I had a fight and when the dust settled, it’s the 3 of them against me.My husband feels that because Dave was living with us more by accident than design so we were really fostering him more than keeping him, and so it would be selfish to keep him when my nephew clearly loves him so much.He says we can go to the shelter and get another companion for our other dog, so that’s like a win-win—Dave gets a home and another dog gets out of the shelter for Christmas. And Dave would certainly be very loved and spoiled with my in-laws, and yet…after two years, he feels like my dog.The thought of giving him away after all this time hurts and the idea that my in-laws are using my nephew’s autism as some kind of trump card to prove they’re entitled to have him really rubs me the wrong way. And I don’t see him as interchangeable, like I can just pop down to the shelter and score a perfect replacement.ETA: My husband doesn’t hate Dave. He still plays with him, pets him, gives him treats, etc. just like he does with our other dog. He just had a feeling that if we took him in, we'd be stuck with him and that’s what happened. But we DID try. I didn’t strongarm or bully my husband into keeping him.And while we never formally sat down and said, “Okay, Dave is officially our dog from this day forward,” a lot of things strongly implied that, from the time my husband came home from Petsmart with an engraved bone-shaped ID tag for Dave’s collar that matched our other dog’s to agreeing to get him microchipped with our address at his annual vet visit last year.He jokes that Dave was an “accident” and that he’s useless because our other dog is a purebred that he got and trained specifically for hunting, while Dave is just a mutt that sometimes plays fetch and sleeps on the couch. I think my in-laws heard Dave’s backstory, picked up on the jokes, and assumed maybe we would be willing to part with him since we'd tried to re-home him before.And I’m not going to divorce my husband because he’s willing to part with Dave because I’m almost certain his desire to give Dave to my nephew is coming more from a place of wanting my nephew to have something that gives his childhood a sense of normalcy rather than dump a dog he doesn’t want off on someone else.And I think he really meant to talk to me about my SIL's request, it's just my BIL was so excited at the possibility of keeping the dog that my BIL beat him to it. 2ETA: Dave reacts to my nephew the same way he reacts to everyone—he wags his tail and loves to take treats, but they don't have this transformative connection that transcends all time and space.It's not like we all encouraged my nephew to get so attached to Dave because we thought it would be adorable or funny—it happened rather quickly and organically.
Here’s how the Reddit community reacted.
Give hubby away instead.
“A dog is not a toy.”
Dave isn’t an object to be passed around.
NTA.
“Keep Dave!”
It’s hard not to think of the eight-year dog custody standoff, where a worried dog parent refused to give her dog back to the original owner.
“He is your dog.”
Don’t let them force you.
Hubby is the AH.
“Dave already found his home.”
Autism isn’t an excuse.
“Two years is a long time.”
“That dog has bonded to you.”
They should adopt a dog from a shelter.
When OP took Dave home after dark, the plan was simple, find an owner or a rescue, not accidentally adopt a whole new family member.
The situation shifts fast once the brother-in-law’s family moves in, because that 8-year-old nephew’s bond with Dave is not something you can just “adjust.”
That’s when OP’s husband and SIL start acting like Dave is already decided, even though OP gets left out until the BIL shows up to thank her.
Now it’s a full-on standoff, with husband and SIL on one side and OP on the other, because Dave went from foster-by-accident to “family” in everyone’s eyes.
Dave may have started as a stray, but he’s left paw prints on everyone’s hearts. One thing’s for sure—this dog isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
The worst part is Dave didn’t change, the moving plan did, and it blew up the whole house.
Before you think that’s wild, see how a woman handled her husband’s annoyance over a stray dog’s yapping in a rescue that turned into a family fight.
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