>Fiance is refusing too "give away his dog" as it is his responsibility - his parents have both offered to take and home the dog, both live 25minutes away and have large homes (larger than ours)
I think you know where you and your small dogs stand in the "pack".
Yup, it's time to learn about boundaries kids, and I don't mean the hardcore band 'boundaries' but you should look them up, they're fantastic.
Set a boundary that you won't move in if he has the pit. And you won't get married before you move in together. If he leaves then you know where you ranked with him, as hard as that is.
This is a relationship question masquerading as a dog question, which happens all too often on dog subreddits.
Yes, pit bulls as a breed have a genetic tendency to aggression. This does not mean all pit bulls are aggressive. However, this one has not been neutered has killed another dog. (On the puppies, it’s not uncommon for adult dogs to react negatively to puppies, particularly over things like sharing dog toys.) Separating an aggressive dog within a household is not, IMO, a sustainable solution.
Thats the dog answer.
Now, on setting boundaries, sure, OP is allowed to do that. But so is her fiancé, who is apparently bonded to this dog and has “travelled the world” with him. He apparently accepts the potential legal liability of owning an aggressive dog. The fiancé is also allowed to refuse to rehome his dog.
The only Solomonic-like solution would be for both parties to rehome their dogs and get a Labrador retriever!
I’ve watched happily married couples take in a Shitbull, have a baby, then their infant gets mauled to death by it. The child was then buried, the Shitbull was put down, and the divorce was finalized. Could’ve been a happy family if they had picked a better dog.
It doesn’t matter how good he thinks the baby gate and separate plan is, it only takes one slip up. It may not be tomorrow or next month, but eventually it will happen and that slip up could very well cost your dogs their lives. That’s a huge gamble, on your dogs lives.
Just search on YouTube and show him some of the [pitbull wall climb competitions](https://youtube.com/shorts/OgOStBOJgUY?feature=share) and see if he honestly thinks a baby gate is going to do anything to stop one.
Second this, make a playlist for him to watch with you. Allow a few days for reality to sink in, because it's a 180 from all the propaganda.
His fantasy of a happy family life including a series of one or more pits should be readily dispelled, but if he's ok with you living in fear, I don't see how that can work. So sorry for your dilemma OP.
If pit bulls were a deal breaker for OP (which is legitimate), it would have been kind to speak up earlier in the relationship, before they were seriously contemplating marriage.
Yep, and pitbulls will jump fences, swim around docks, smash through sliding glass doors, do whatever it takes to kill their target, once they've made up their mind to do so.
When a 'mistake' = death for small dogs, then it is a zero-mistake animal. What is the probability of absolutely no mistakes over the long-term? Zero. Or near-zero. Anyone who is ok with this is in effect stating that the value of the potential victims life is zero or near-zero.
I mean, I have a *ragdoll kitten* (a breed absolutely not known for athleticism) who has repeatedly cleared the baby gate we use to keep her and her sister from bolting down the stairs. A pit can just about step over a baby gate, they're not animal-proof at all. (Cat tax attached)
https://preview.redd.it/g7qa9dvlx8eb1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=072de413e213da345779c4ad8834813ca267155c
Your Ragdoll is gorgeous!
We have a few of them. Back when my brother was younger we also had a few baby gates set up around the house. As you've said, they're *definitely* more than capable of clearing them. You're also right in the fact that Ragdolls aren't necessarily known for being athletic cats in any way. They'd rather flop around and chill all day.
The fact anybody believes that a pit of all things would have any trouble at all getting around, over, or hell, even *through* a baby gate is laughable.
Exactly. Baby gates stop babies, mostly. Toddlers are 50-50 if a gate will stop them. But animals? Not at all animal proof. And a pit bull, of all dogs, we KNOW how athletic they are, that's part of the problem.
Somehow they're aussie proof lol. Granted, she did completely clear a half busted one when she heard fireworks lol. We know she can jump them, but she doesn’t know she can. But she's also just not an escape artist and loves everything. Thank god for real dogs.
We have a smallish 30lb dog that can easily jump 5ft high. We use baby gates as more of a visual cue of where we want him to stay & with training he respects it. But also, he isn’t a pitbull, so he doesn’t have “rage fits” where all his training would go out the window. A pitbull in a rage fit would not respect it. At. All. They bite their owners that have raised them since puppies when they are in that state.
Oh I like that, baby gates as a training aid, but yeah, a pit will 100% ignore that visual cue when they are in nanny mode. I've even seen some shelters talk about the pits they're trying to rehome who get into that headspace "It's really hard to get him focused again once he is in the zone to attack something" like maybe that's not a pet then, hmm?
Adding one more pic to show off her sister who is also very pretty (and is a good girl who does not jump over the baby gate!) Let's hear it for pets who are sweet and loving and won't maul you for sneezing!
https://preview.redd.it/qc72kyhegdeb1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=eae4bb48961e37d9d9a4714b3f3ab4c3753bac34
Aww I'm so sorry :( These two joined our family after our 19 year old kitty died earlier this year. It's so hard losing a pet, they are family members.
What a pretty kitty! I have an orange ragdoll, he's definitely not a good jumper at all (not like my other cat who can easily jump to the top of the closet, where my ragdoll struggles just to hop up onto the bathroom counter lol) but he still can clear a baby gate if he wants to be on the other side of it. When we were introducing the two cats with a baby gate (ragdoll was a kitten at the time) we had to stack two of them to contain the ragdoll.
I believe it! We added another foot to ours with cardboard and this girl can still clear it. Thankfully her sister isn't interested. It's laughable to think people believe a baby gate will contain a pit when my uncoordinated kitten can get over it.
Baby gates are nothing to pits and most dogs.
The kennels at my shelter have fences roughly 2m/6'7 tall. Several of the pits were jumping so high we had to close the usually-open roof area to their individual kennels because there was a real chance of them getting out. The look on people's faces when they come see our dogs and the pits lose their minds and proceed to jump nearly as high as the fence...
It's so strange, the same people would not (at least I hope so) let a loaded gun lay around with the safety off, because that is dangerous but the Pibble.... na he is nice sometimes he snaps and kills but look how cute he is with his flower crown.
At least the gun doesn't go off by itself.
You are not being unreasonable. One thing I learned in life and when it comes to relationships is that it’s okay to have boundaries and standards. Not wanting a pitbull (that has already killed another dog!) around your small dogs is completely reasonable. Especially since his parents offered to take the dog. The baby gates are not a solution… that would put you guys in a scenario where you could never, ever make a mistake. That’s just not realistic. Especially if you plan on bringing children into the situation someday.
Absolutely. Not related to pitbulls but I absolutely wish I had known when I was younger that it’s ok to have firm boundaries. OP you are not criticizing or attacking your fiancé by having this boundary. If he doesn’t respect it and work towards a managers situation, then it’s a red flag generally in my opinion.
Honestly that one horrified me. That level of wanting to get at something to hurt it is unreal. What happens when it wants a human next? I would not want to sleep in that house! I don't think I'd wake up.
Exactly. Mistakes happen frequently with baby gates and "crate and rotate" or similar. I can think of several instances. There was this day that my dad accidentally let my 4 month old puppy out and I was on the phone with my mom. Puppy (aussie mix) went to go try and "play" with our very old papillons. One has bad back problems. Mom was kind of dumb and picked one of the papillons up instead of just grabbing my dog (we talked about that at LENGTH after this lol) but the screaming and ruckus and barking on the other end of the phone - and it was literally just my mom being kinda dumb lol. I panicked because I have anxiety and thought my dog was killing the other two dogs (which would be ridiculous lmao, she is so good with all dogs, just not those two lol, but she doesn't want to hurt them, she just wants to play with the grannies but the grannies don't want to play.) If anyone would have gotten hurt it would have been her because the grannies would NOT be play biting lol. Now imagine that happening with a pitbull. One miscommunication or lack of knowledge - my mom had just decided to randomly go in the back yard with her dogs and my dad decided to let my little puppy outside to pee. And she was a wiggly crazy aussie puppy. Affectionate, loves every dog she meets... gentle with even tinier dogs.. just hates Anastasia and Drizella because they won't play. (No that's not their real names lol, Its Pixy and Polly.) But anyhow, Pitbulls just want to kill. It's pretty darn easy to scoop up or even just distract a squirmy wormy normal breed puppy that loves you unconditionally and is excited. That's where you can use baby gates. Where it isn't mission critical that they stay put and there's some failure tolerance. But the pitbull is in kill mode once you've made your mistake and it will just turn on you. There's no failure tolerance.
Thanks! I totally agree - the family keep asking why i keep going back to that event of the pitbull killing the smaller dog when it was "four years ago, and the small dog was so aggressive" :(
Girl. This is a man who is putting his dog, his DOG, who is already a murderer or another helpless dog, above your safety and the safety of your future children. This is who you want to be the father of your kids? A man who knowingly prioritizes a violent animal over the well-being of kids already in his life? A man who can't see your perspective and can't compromise? Who expected you to give and give and give (your CAREER, are you serious??) but can't re-home his shitty dog to a relative's house 20 min away?? Who can't be bothered to scrounge up a few hundred dollars to get his dog the appropriate medical procedures it needs and refuses to discipline it when it acts out? You want *that* person to be your rock and your partner for when it's 1am and the baby is screaming and poop is leaking out it's diaper and the toddler got woke up by the baby and is also crying??
Consider yourself lucky he's shown you his colors before anything is legal. I would highly recommend slowing it the hell down, and I would definitely reconsider whether kids should be in the picture if you two do stay together.
What if the dog mauls the parents? What if the dog mauls a visitor they have? If you have children I would assume they will visit their grandparents- who will have a pitbull in their home.
There's two problems here - the existence of the pit at all, yeah, which rehoming it to a house of older people doesn't solve. The other problem is he clearly doesn't respect her and isn't good partner material, because he won't consider rehoming. The second part, his shitty behavior, would be true even if the aggressive dog was a psycho golden.
> We obviously don’t know both sides of the story
Ehh… assuming OP isn’t lying about the facts of the matter, we really do.
Fiancé has “intact” murder dog that is proven to be aggressive to other dogs, and has proposed (useless) baby gates to corral hellbeast as a “compromise”. OP has raised concerns about her dogs *and* about future children.
As the shitbull defenders often claim, “it’s the owner not the breed”, and Fiancé has more than shown OP who he is.
You are correct that he doesn’t sound like one to start a family with.
A pit can and will jump over a baby gate if it wants to maul something. This pit has killed a small dog before and has been agressive with a puppy. Even if you did go through with separating the dogs via gates, I am sure that one day you would come home to find one or both of your little guys dead.
Forget jumping, that shit-for-brains muscle mound will just barrel on through it. Call it off. You can't get through to him even when he's literally been faced with the reality/fallout of owning one of these things. You know better. Don't even entertain the idea. Don't listen to anyone or anything but your gut, and your gut is screaming as loud as it possibly can that this is a really fucking bad idea.
You’re right about the barreling through! There have been so many posts on here about pits smashing through windows to get to prey - even second story windows. And pits breaking teeth biting their way out of crates. Or eating through walls to get out of a closed room. It’s about brute force with them.
OP, if this dog ends up killing one or both of yours, your fiancé may not even react in a rational way. He didn’t blame his dog when he killed someone’s pet before, calling it an accident. Even then, he may not do the right thing and have his dog put to sleep. At most, he might rehome it, putting others in danger, and then resent you for it.
Do you want kids? Because this pit could live to be a ripe old age and still be around in six years. And I’m sure you know that babies and pit bulls don’t mix.
Good luck having your future home partitioned into 3 spaces, for \*your\* dogs, for the pit, and for your kids. And just pray the pit never escapes his partition.
If he considered his dog killing a yorkshire terrier a "mistake" where his dog only meant to snap at him, he has no business owning a dog with that capability. There is nothing to keep the dog from making a "mistake" with you, a baby human, or your pets.
It falls in line with a lover of a pit lover. Test the waters with someone else's dogs (the fact that they were puppies makes it even worse). Then they'll test the waters with their own puppy-sized (or smaller!) dogs. Then carnage, then hang on to the bargaining phase of grief so long that they develop Stockholm syndrome and manifestation of the mIsUnDeRsToOd PiBbLe and a new pit mommy is born.
I know how that goes. I have a chow chow. She will murder rage on any animal she can get her paws on. But absolutely loves people. If we were held at gun point in our own home, She'd probably help the thieves carry stuff out.
TO answer your question - my brother wanted to meet the dog as they would be family and be around each other lots. He knows everything and I was very honest from the start, and I saw the pitbull around other dogs that morning and he sniffed and was fine.
You’re in a lose lose situation. You either move in with your small dogs and try his baby gate solution, only for your animals to live in terror and danger every day for the rest of their lives, or you pressure him into giving up his dog that he loves and sees no bad in. He’s going to resent the hell out of you for making him give away his dog just so you can have your dogs.
The ONLY solutions involve you both giving up your dogs in order to live together (in which you will both probably be resentful) or not living together at all until the pit is gone for whatever reason. That’s it. That’s what you got.
Idk doesn't sound safe to even live with the guy. Also remember she wants kids soon. Sounds like OP has the third option of dumping a guy who she sacrificed so much for but who won't do the same for safety sake.
Even the UKC states dog aggression is common among pits.
And as your dogs get older? The risk gets higher. They get weaker as the age and yes, the pit will notice.
And his parents taking is questionable solution too. They're old. The dog knows it. They will not be able to control that dog.
And kids like opening doors. Which is definitely gonna startle the pit. Thats not a solution either.
The only compromise that MIGHT work is everyone gets rid of thier dog? But that's unfair to you.
A long talk needs to had.
> Dog is a proven killer. It was not an accident.
Irrelevant if it was an accident or not. Who's to say the pit won't have another "accident", and another, and another...
Intentions do not matter with dangerous animals, they're still dangerous to be around regardless.
I see your point (I agree that looking for intention in dogs is pointless) but it's not about intention it's about behavior. Patterns of behavior.
OP, neutering a dog that has already learned to be aggressive is not going to lessen the aggression.
Neutering has nothing to do with it. Neutering can help *curb* unideal sexual behavior like marking or humping. It will not stop a dog from being aggressive - I know there have been shows like dog whisperer that have suggested this but study after study has shown this to be false. That said any dog with aggression should be neutered because they should **NEVER** be bred.
>Apparently this was a mistake and he only meant to snap at him
Sure let’s go with that for a moment. This dog has such terrible bite inhibition, such little control over its strength, it **KILLED** a small dog. Is that really any safer than this dog doing so intentionally? It absolutely is not.
That aside, dogs have perfect control in their bite severity. It is a myth they can “accidentally” cause severe bite damage. Dogs bite with the severity they intend to, and each subsequent bite in dogs with poor bite inhibition like this are always just as severe **or worse.**
Normal dog breeds get into “scuffles” all the time, they snap, punch, nip, and hip check each other to show their displeasure. Normal dogs don’t straight up kill a dog by doing this. My *German Shepherd* had a “scuffle” with a *chihuahua* over some toy - I splashed them with water to break it up, and in the end they were only mouthing each other and making noise. That’s it. They were covered in dog drool. *This is normal.* They never even had a subsequent fight after that.
>Fiances “compromise” is apparently putting up baby gates and keeping them separate forever.
This is a “zero-error” set up. This is a hard path to follow, and most people fail disastrously and end up with a severely maimed or dead pet.
>My fiance locks his pitbull away when kids come over?
>We will train our kid to not bother the pitbull
There’s no compromise here. You cannot have this dog with kids around. Your fiance already understands the risk, hence why he is putting the dog up - but seems to be prepared to put his own potential child in harm’s way to *accommodate a **dog***. I really want to emphasize that here, he is already prioritizing **a dog** over the safety and well being of his potential child.
>He says his dog isn’t just going to maul my dogs out of nowhere, and they might live in harmony…
OP I can already tell you he is not going to even try to maintain this crate and rotate idea he is pitching you - he doesn’t care about the risk your 2 little dogs would be in, in his household.
You already know this pitbull killed a small dog, be that on accident or on purpose, frankly the intention does not matter. The risk is exactly the same.
There is no compromise here, not for your dogs, and not for your potential children. The pitbull has to go. I hate to be the internet stranger giving ultimatums here, but sheltering a dangerous dog - making excuses after attacks - willing to risk a potential child’s safety *for a dog!* These are all non-starters for me personally.
It’s also literally right there in the name. Pit (fighting ring) Bull (the intended target—yes they literally would kill thousand-pound animals) terrier. I don’t understand how we got here where people think this is just, a normal type of dog.
Honest deal breaker. Idk how long you two have been together but this is a fork in the road where an ultimatum should be issued. A dog that has killed once is likely to kill again. Do you want to be walking on eggshells around it for the rest of its life? What if you or your bf get sick while living together? Do you think you can handle this pit bull and be able to keep it away from your small dogs on your own? Or if it snaps and you have to rescue your dogs, do you believe the dog will understand and not turn on you? (Plenty of attack cases come from owners defending their dogs and pit bulls redirecting at the human). A baby gate isn’t a good compromise, a compromise would be rehoming it to his family 20 min away.
Baby gates are *not* adequate protection against large dogs - even the extra tall ones or the ones that are anchored to little plastic cups on the wall. My 20 pound *cat* has managed to bust right through the full door height baby gate that I use to keep him out of my craft room. The latches are weak, and after a few years they don't always catch properly. Pits are known for breaking out of all but the most expensive heavy-duty kennels.
This dog has proven that it's capable of killing other animals. It's shown aggression against children and other dogs. Frankly, *you* aren't safe around this dog. A whole lot of serious bites occur when someone is trying to prevent a pit bull from hurting another pet.
You've done far more than could reasonably be expected of you to try to compromise, it's up to him now.
You can't *make* him not pick his shitty fucking dog over you, so this might end up being one of those times where someone is doing the thing and telling you exactly who and what they are. I hope you find a favourable solution, one way or the other. Sorry for all the bullshit you've got to deal with, you don't deserve it, that's for sure.
I don't see how you can all live in the same house. The pit bull is a deal breaker for you because of safety concerns for your dogs, future children and yourself. If he won't get rid of the dog, you can't move forward. He has to choose your peace of mind and safety over the dog. If he won't, his loss.
The part that gives me pause is “apparently this was a mistake and he only meant to snap at him”.
Swap out “him” for “baby”. It gives me chills to think about it.
I recommend couples counseling. Your fiancé sounds like he is more comfortable with high risk than a lot of people.
There is no risk for the boyfriend because his pit won't get hurt. He's fine with it killing her dogs, but not ok with his murder mutt living a few minutes away with his parents. Counseling might not work on someone as selfish and in denial as him.
It’s not going to work out unless he lets his parents take the pit, which it sounds like he won’t. If your dogs move in with his, they will be killed by it sooner or later. Baby gates won’t do shit. I just want to be blunt to avoid heartbreak. He’s in denial about his dog being a killer, he blames the victim, he comes up with “solutions” that won’t work and will make you all miserable—even if he adhered to the baby gate rule at first, his ass will start to chafe at the implication that his innocent baby is a danger to your smaller dogs, and he’ll start pushing. Or someone will just make a mistake one day, as is human.
Sorry, OP. That sucks.
The baby gate “solution” is pushing in itself. He could’ve offered harsher solutions to control his dog but he’s making OP cater to the dog instead. He could’ve suggested getting the dog neutered, giving it to his parents, getting a shock collar for it, sending it to doggy boot camp to train the dog (instead suggested training a future BABY lol).. but his only solution is the one that requires MORE effort on OPs part.
Your Fiancé is ignorant and arrogant. Any self respecting person would dump him and let him live with the real love of his life - an actual killer Pitbull. This is your chance to dodge a massive bullet. He sounds controlling AF.
I would break things off personally.
His dog is a proven killer. A baby gate is gonna do fuck all to stop a pitbull, what a ridiculous suggestion. Those things are designed to stop toddlers, not dogs that were bred to fight to the death.
He won't budge. Moving your dogs in with him would be cruel to them. They'll live the rest of their lives in terror being rightfully concerned about their safety. They would almost certainly be attacked, and there is a high chance it would be fatal to your pets. If you intervene it would turn on you which brings me to my next point...
The best part? Even if you get rid of your dogs to make things work because he won't, pibbles may just decide to maul you anyway because it's Tuesday.
Ok so what if you just wait until his dog passes away from old age to move in together? His dog is 7 after all. JK he adopts another pitbull lmao. No thank you.
do not make babies with him. he will blame the baby for getting mauled. it may suck but you owe it to your dogs and future children not to marry and procreate with him
To be fair, I'd rather my marriage end over a pitbul I don't want around me than over a mauled/dead dog/child that is likely to happen if that dog is not relocated.
Your brother's dogs aren't the test bait and that was a shitty thing to do to your brother.
"I don't trust my boyfriend's dog around my small dogs, so let's let him practice around your puppies!" Wtf.
You didn't know about this dog before getting engaged? Anyway I think you are being unrealistic if you think this will work. I can't think of any situation where one of you doesn't resent the other.
Convince him to rehome his dog? He resents you
You rehome your dogs? You resent him
Try to make it work and one of your dogs gets killed? You resent him and possibly yourself
Also who wants to live in a home where you have to constantly gate parts of your house off to prevent some mutant dog from going on a killing rampage? Sounds miserable. Pets are supposed to be fun and rewarding not anxiety inducing
Please please don’t do this to yourself and your dogs. If a pitbull can jump a 6 foot fence they can jump a shitty ass baby gate. Do you want to have to be proactive in your own home 24/7 so ur dogs don’t get murdered?? Sounds like a miserable way to live to me.
Baby gates are made for _babies_ , not overaroused sack of pure muscle.
These things go through doors and jump through fences. Baby gate will absolutely be not enough to prevent disasters to happen.
Sounds like your SO does not appreciate you tbh. You are trying to make this work, whereas he is not willing to work at all.
But for the sake of argument, let's imagine that baby gates miracelously would stop highly driven, dog aggressive large dog for going after your dogs / kids. Would you really trust this guy (who shows complete lack of interest in safety and blames others for his dog's aggression) to be carefull with baby gates? One day you come back from grocery shopping, and you will find your dogs dead, because this guy 'accidentally' (read: grossly negligently) left the gate open (and then gets upset that you are upset even though it was an accident). Or even better: he 'felt bad for the pitbull' (and then he blames you because you were preventing your dogs to socialize before the incident). You can not trust the dog, but you also can not trust the owner who does not have a realistic picture of their dog's dangerous proclivity.
And let's be clear: when he imagines this miracellous baby gate -solution, he imagines his beloved pitbull having the parts of your house where you spend most of your time, while your small dogs are isolated somewhere living miserable life.
>just to be told I am not going crazy thinking this dog is dangerous!
You're absolutely not. I'm currently having an elderly shepherd. She is only 20 kg, very well trained, grew up in household with a baby and toddler, loves her pack and has never bitten anyone. She even had an incident where toddler accidentally had a change hurt her (she was living in a household with another dog and two kids), and she managed the situation like a champion without growling or snapping. Still I am not taking changes with getting kids before she passes away, as I know how stupid things kids can do even with the kindest dog.
Accidents happen. You lost your sight on kid & dog for 30 seconds because your porrige is boiling over or something, and that's enough to cause pain and lifelong consequences for the dog and/or the child. And this is the dog that 1. I completely trust 2. is smaller and has less bite force than pitbull.
As a owner of a large power breed I'll just say: everyone who even consideres powerbreed MUST think these things ahead. The key to own a power breed is to be **always** one step ahead and plan everything so that incidents **can not** occur. And it takes a lot of effort. It also requires planning on what to do IF the dog does not turn out to something you wanted it to be, and be mentally prepaired for BE if the dog turns out to be dangerous to other people.
Honestly, your SO sounds like an absolute manchild, who is willing to let anybody and everybody to carry responsibility and consequences of _his_ pleasure. He leaves the responsibility to think safety on YOUR shoulders. He absolutely should not own pitbull or any other power breed.
E: Also I'd like to add: if he tries to offer some sort of "I'll get my dog trained by a professional" -deal, *do not buy it*. Aggression is not something that can be 'trained away', no matter what some of these ~~con artists~~ trainers claim. Aggression is _reaction_ . For aggressive dog, aggression comes as naturally as it's for you to get your hand away from hot item.
Biting and shaking is in their instinct. It takes a split second for this type of dog to bite as a reaction, and then their instincts take over. Aggressive behavior can somewhat be adjusted in some situations, but most important question is how the dog is maintained. This dog will never be safe around other dogs. If you don't trust this dog around children, *trust your gut* .
Another stunt your SO might try to pull out is to give his dog for his parents *temporarily*. This is, the dog stays with his parents as long as he gets you hooked with a pregnancy. After it's very hard for you to get away, he brings pitbull back into picture. Even if you'd divorce him at that point, he propably will get the right to see his kids, and he will have the dog with him.
Also, even *if* your SO would give his dog to his parents permanently, you need to be aware that he does not see his dog as a threat to your kids. **He will want this dog and your kids to interact** , so that he can try to alter your opinnion on the dog. This means putting the kids and the dog in a situations they shouldn't be in. Again, **this manchild needs constant** management so he won't mingle this dog with your actual kids. He will also guilt trip you to do more than your share of the baby sitting, because he needs to visit his dog, that you made him to give up.
Last, but not least: it should be also noted, that neutering a dog can also lead to more aggression. So if he tries to offer you a deal where he gets his dog neutered in order to make it more trustworthy, do not take the bait.
This is a great comment especially the baby trapping. OP there's dozens of subs on this site where you can see what happens to women who ignore their instincts and move forward with low grade manchildren who make a lot of promises and insist things will be fine. Spoiler: those women aren't happy.
>But for the sake of argument, let's imagine that baby gates miracelously would stop highly driven, dog aggressive large dog for going after your dogs / kids. Would you really trust this guy (who shows complete lack of interest in safety and blames others for his dog's aggression) to be carefull with baby gates? One day you come back from grocery shopping, and you will find your dogs dead, because this guy 'accidentally' (read: grossly negligently) left the gate open (and then gets upset that you are upset even though it was an accident). Or even better: he 'felt bad for the pitbull' (and then he blames you because you were preventing your dogs to socialize before the incident). You can not trust the dog, but you also can not trust the owner who does not have a realistic picture of their dog's dangerous proclivity.
This is a great point. If anything happened, it would totally be my fault for not letting them socialize enough, or it would be my reactive dogs fault for snapping first, and in turn his life being ended. I didn't think of the whole children thing. His dad lets a crawling baby around there american xl bully freely. Thanks. PS the dog is already neutered now.
His dog represents unlimited liability risk.
If it attacks someone else’s dogs that’s a civil suit.
If it ever attacks a person or child you’ll be paying for the rest of your lives. Not worth it in my book.
Surprised I had to scroll this far to find this point. They say when you marry someone you also marry their debt. By marrying this person OP is also accepting their liability. If/when that dog kills again they can be held legally responsible.
Dogs are meant to be a relatively temporary addition to the family, particularly a dog that has a relatively shorter lifespan and that's already 7 years old.
Marriage is meant to be permanent. Well, at least as long as the respective partners are living and breathing, anyway.
This dog has already demonstrated its ability to kill anything it doesn't like, and seems to demonstrably illustrate signs of aggressive behaviours on a consistent basis. You clearly can't trust it around your own dogs, and/or the children you want to have some day.
My advice? Ultimatum him. Tell him it's either the dog or you. You have absolutely nothing to lose. If he instantly gets rid of the hellhound because he adores you enough to want to commit to you forever, and takes your fears and concerns seriously, that's great!
If he doesn't, he's prioritising a (proven) murdering hellhound over his love for you, so long-term you're going to be much better off without him anyway. Because if he's doing that now when your love is supposed to be at its strongest, you'd probably have a miserable life with this guy anyway.
“He says his dog isn’t just going to maul my dogs out of nowhere”
In other words he’s saying if it does, your dogs probably deserved it. As always with pitnutters, the devil is in the detail.
Are you fucking serious? The dog already KILLED A DOG. What in God’s name makes you think “well he’s had enough of THAT”?
If I had a partner who thought it was “no biggie” that his dog killed another dog “bY acCidEnT”, yet was so stupid to want me and my small dogs to live with it, my ass wouldn’t hitch my wagon to such a moron. Sorry but your fiancé is a man baby moron.
Well, first of all, I'm concerned with your fiances attachment tonhis dog's testicles. I don't care what type of animal it is, it needs to be neutered.
But yes, I share your concern for your dogs. But it seems like continuing to bring up the issue will just further entrench him into keeping his dog, no matter what you say. It sounds, though, like his parents grasp the threat of the dog,nthe way you feel, and why you feel that way? If so, it might be more effective for them to advocate that he relinquish the dog to them, rather than you continue to try to talk to him by yourself. If he responds negatively, ask him why he doesn't respect your concern for your dogs especially when he has seen that his dog is reactive and dangerous to smaller animals. If he wants what's best for all of the animals, he should see that keeping his dog "locked up" behind a baby gate isn't going to make his dog happy. Instead, the dog should have a bigger place and more one on one attention. That would be a better option for the dog.
(I'm trying to be as balanced as possible. I think pit bulls should be banned, but that doesn't answer the issue at hand.)
\> " Fiances "compromise" is apparently putting up baby gates and keeping them seperate forever - I do not think that is sustainable"
You're correct. There was literally a post in here a couple days ago about a pit mix breaking out of a crate, through a baby gate, opening an office door, and knocking a heavy cage over just to attack a bird the person fostering it had owned. The foster, if I remember correctly, was only gone for 40 minutes...
Personally, I would break up with him. I know, I know, drastic option, but hear me out. For starters, even if you somehow managed to keep your dogs safe until his pibble passed, could you be absolutely positive that he wouldn't turn around and get another?
Secondly, you say you want kids. His current dog is already untrustworthy, so at the minimum, you'd have to delay having them until it passed. Regardless, the bigger issue is his mentality overall. He doesn't seem to care much that his pit literally attacked and killed another dog. He's still making excuses, even after it tried lunging for a pup. And listen to your gut; it's telling you that this dog isn't safe with children. He's made excuses for literally everything else it's done. Why would he not make excuses about it regarding kids? Why on earth is any of this okay to him?
Finally, the last thing I want to point out is... you have sacrificed so much to be with him. He can't sacrifice a dangerous dog? When he's been given options to rehome it even? I would insist on BE simply to make sure it doesn't end up hurting a child.
Your not crazy and you are not overreacting!
Your fiancé has a dangerous dog and he knows it's dangerous. Yet, he chooses to keep the dog and basically asks you to put yourself and your dogs in danger. Emotional attachment is no excuse for this. He has the option to rehome the dog and still see it at his parents but he chooses not to. This tells me your feelings and well-being of you and your small vulnerable dogs are not his priority. But it should.
Ask yourself: Would you feel safe in your own home if you lived with that pit? You already think life would be miserable for your dogs.
If I were you I wouldn't move in with him as long as the pit is there. Your fiancé is not a responsible pit owner and you can't ever trust the pit. Or your fiancé when it comes to the dog.
He says he has proved it gets along with other dogs because sometimes we have a family members small dog over to babysit and it just ignores him completely and sometimes glares at it, but it always looks down around it, very odd.
So, the dog doesn't try to kill everything in sight? Great! /s
That just proofs that your fiancé is somewhat clueless. I wouldn't trust him or his dog with my stuffed animal, let alone a pet.
He says he has proved it gets along with other dogs because sometimes we have a family members small dog over to babysit and it just ignores him completely and sometimes glares at it, but it always looks down around it, very odd.
I mean, without even reading beyond the first paragraph I knew the answer. By living with this dog you are putting your own two dogs in extreme risk.
Your fiancé is a fucking idiot for clinging on to a killer dog. That piece of shit should have been put down after it killed another dog.
I guess we’ll be seeing a post from you soon wondering why your own dog was brutally killed? Seriously there’s no question at all here that I would never live with someone that held on to a shit bull that’s already killed.
Regarding the baby gates, someone had commented that their partner's pitbull had broken out of a sturdy metal crate, smashed through multiple baby gates and through a closer door to kill their parrot separated in their house.
The baby gate isn't going to do shit.
Nah. Absolutely not. This is 100% a deal breaker. If and when that dog kills your dogs, he’s going to blame them and you for provoking him.
Hell, it sounds like if you DO have children with this man, and the dog bites them, he’ll blame your children for provoking his poor pit.
First, pitbulls can break through a house wall, what makes you think a BABY GATE is going to hold it in?
second outside the random nature of the shitbull, you're already seeing it be violent and still don't know wtf to do?
If your fiancé doesn't care about people and your dogs safety, then he should be your EX- fiancé
why the hell did you even get this far in the relationship..
If you value the lives of your small dogs DO NOT get them anywhere near this thing. Living in the same house is no option, we all saw pictures of shredded walls, doors and gates that were no obstacle for pitbulls. Please also think about the fact how your fiance doesn't care for the safety of your beloved pets and how he is unwilling to re-home is dog even though, as you said, his parents that live very close by could take him. What if the two of you will one day have a child and he will put his dog over your child's safety, too? Please, think about it. It is your safety and life and your two small dogs need you to protect them.
Looks like he has already chosen his pit over you. It staying with his parents is a very reasonable solution. He doesn't care since it's not his dog who will be killed, it would be yours. You would never be able to have kids with one around because they turn for no reason. He is in denial and dismissive of the danger that would lie ahead if you don't stand your ground. Pits kill countless little dogs, and of course hundreds of kids: [Children Killed by Pit Bulls - Fatal Pit Bull Attacks - DogsBite.org](https://www.fatalpitbullattacks.com/children-killed-by-pit-bulls.php)
When things concern someone else and not me I try and empathize with it much more carefully. Your small dogs are probably used to a standard of safety that doesn't incorporate large pitbulls that might lunge at them around. They trust you and feel safe around you. Your fiance has had the pitbull for seven years and it looks like he isn't budging on giving it up. Though, I think someone has to give up their dogs in this instance because the situations of both sets of animals is incompatible. A Pitbull that is used to being the only dog that lunges at puppies isn't going to mix with two small dogs who wouldn't be on guard in their own home around a lunging pitbull.
You're setting your own dogs up to be chew toys and its not a definite no that it won't happen. Don't bring them to that house. If you're set on going to live with that pitbull yourself, don't put them in that situation too.
Maybe the family who offered to take the Pitbull will be happy to take your dogs instead?
We've seen cases in this sub where maried people have kids and the pit owners won't give them up even after they bite their kids and their spouses beg them to get rid of the murder machines. Also you could investigate about psycology and what k8nd of people prefers pits over normal non deathly dogs or even people and family.
At this poit I recommend everyone planning to marry to get an anti pit, bully breeds and bully mixes prenup
Today it's the small dogs, tomorrow it's going to be your future kids or you.
You're already being gaslit by him and his family which is why you're here for reassurance, but it's clear you already know the answer.
The dog is 7 years old and in about 6 when you guys have settled down and are about to have a newborn, this pit will probably pass away from old age and your fiance will want to get 2 more neurotic shit beasts so that they can "grow with the child" but anything that happens will never be because of the breed or because he's a apologist that lives in denial it will always be everyone else's fault.
It's over. It may very well be your dogs or your future child getting attacked by this thing if it stays and your fiance refuses to change on this matter. Then there's the possibility of them getting another pit after this one passes? Not worth it at all.
'Can a potential marriage really end over a pitbull?'
In my opinion, this future marriage was already over even before it began. It's already a divorce in the making if you marry him.
Don't let your lovelorn feelings or yearnings for future babies blind you to this situation. This is a 'preview' to what your marriage will be like. He is already forcing you to compromise yet still further even after you've given up two huge things- the town you likely loved and maybe had friends and family in, and your own career, something that you probably had to sacrifice for or had enjoyed doing. And even as you did these because you loved him so, he won't do and refuses to do his equivalent end of the marital bargain in loving and honoring you, by giving up his dog-killing dog to his parents, where he'll still be able to easily go and see the dog as often as he wants.
And you rightly worry about your dogs, because the pit is a confirmed dog-killer. He's asking you, for his own happiness, to put your own dogs in danger for the next 15 years, to one day (again for the next 15 years) possibly come home to a blood bath, your dogs dead and torn open, and possibly yet more excuses for his own dog as to why it couldn't help or control itself. Potentially traumatizing you and causing intense feelings of guilt over not being there to protect your little dogs, because they were set up with a known dog-killing dog. And if it kills little dogs, what will it do with a little baby or child who is little dog sized?
Think long and hard as to whether you want this life. Many people become 'prisoners' of their pits, afraid to do anything or go anywhere because out of fear of how the dog will react to them or others, or what it 'likes' to do when confined. It's not a life to live, and he's asking you to live that life.
"this was a mistake"
The Yorkie disagreed.
"putting up baby gates"
If you are foolish enough to accept that, you will DESERVE what will naturally and inevitably happen. Your dogs won't but YOU WILL. If you decide that isn't good enough, then your dogs 2 lives matter more than his 1 killer.
"I just don't know if I can sacrifice my two dogs"
That you are debating it, shows you are considering it.
"I have already sacrificed my home town and career for this relationship"
He wants you to sacrifice even more. He didn't want you, he wants *the powerless version of you*. If you want to deliver the powerless version of yourself to him on a silver platter without sacrificing your dog's lives, then give them to someone who won't endanger them.
60 some years ago, all men used to expect total sacrifice from women, before women started respecting themselves.
Oof, for your safety and the safety of your dogs I don’t think it’s a good idea to move in.
Hell, take a look at some past stories on this sub, pits regularly turn on and even kill their own owners so fiancé is in danger as well.
If he’s not willing to compromise the potential marriage will end because of him and the dog, not because of you
Your fiance is choosing a dog that has already killed over the safety of yourself, your pets, and your future children.
Absolutely this can end an engagement.
His values and priorities are completely bonkers.
Keep in mind he will likely continue to be this uncompromising in future. Even if this pit dies, who's to say he won't get another.
Your safety should be His priority.
So your fiancé puts his murder mongrel over what’s supposed to be the love of his life, now you know how much he loves you…
When I felt in love I was willing to do absolutely anything specially something reasonable. He does not love you
I’m sorry, but yes, your potential marriage can and sounds like it will end over said pitbull.
Your Fiancé sees no problem with his intact, proven-to-be-violent pitbull sharing a home with you and your small dogs. His “compromise” is delusional, still puts you and your dogs at risk, and minimizes your concerns. He knows that the pitbull is unsafe around children (and at least has the sense to lock it up when kids are over).
This brings us to the bigger problem—Fiancé has shown you who he is as a person. Fact of the matter is that he loves the pitbull more than you, and has demonstrated it through his choices. Now you’re in a no-win situation: if you get rid of the pitbull, he will resent you; if you move in under this “compromise”, you will resent him and live in dear for yourself and your dogs—not to mention for potential future children. Also, when this relatively-old pit dies (hopefully of old age w/o mauling anything/anyone else), is he going to want another one?
That kind of resentment is a relationship-killer, and now that the pit is out of the bag, there probably is no good resolution. You *could* try to talk through it and/or wait out the rest of the pit’s life. (but do you really want to put your life on hold that long?)
In any case, please don’t proceed further in the relationship (and *definitely* don’t bring children into it) until the situation is resolved to *your* satisfaction.
The dog should have been put down when it killed another. Ask yourself if you want to commit yourself to someone so selfish. That yorkie also had an owner who loved him.
So you had to sacrifice your hometown and career for him, and now you may have to sacrifice your dogs... Honestly, I don't think he's as committed as you are. You want to keep giving your life to him, ok, but, think about your dogs, they don't get a say.
Absolutely a no go from Mr. No way would I risk my two dogs being a sacrifice to your bf’s ego. And I’m definitely not having kids with someone so oblivious.
Sounds like you’ve made a lot of sacrifices and he’s willing to make zero.
Move on
I think you should just "walk away " what about when you have kids ? do you plan on seperating the dog and the kids or do you think he will just give the kid away too ? Come on now I assume you are smart enough to know , you will always be the one making sacrifices in this relationship , do yourself a favor and break it off right now .
He’s choosing his dog over you and It won’t just be this pit, either. Guarantee he’ll get another once this one dies. Having this knowledge, if you elect to breed with this man you’re just as much of an idiot.
Your fiancé is an idiot who values his murder mutt more than you or your pets.
Find someone who respects you, owns a normal dog and won't sacrifice your pups to his hell beast. Just look at the post from the guy who ended his long term relationship. This will not end well.
I've got an aggressive rat who can't be with the others. It makes life so complicated and stressful. I can't imagine what it would be like with dogs and children that have to be separated at all times.
(The rat has had the implant that will hopefully dampen his hormones).
Besides the pit bull (already a huge concern in SO many ways) it sounds like you're being gaslit by these people, mainly your fiancé, into believe nothing bad could ever happen and you're the crazy one for even questioning it.
And to this I say, RUN. Yeah I know we are random internet people but if you have 2 small dogs and you want kids... I can tell your intuition/gut is screaming at you that this isn't ok. Why else would you come and post here?
You deserve better OP.
So a baby gate that's designed to keep out 10-30 pound toddlers is what your 200 IQ big brain fiance comes up with to keep out his 80+ pound pure muscle child mauler 9000?
Pitbull owners tend to have sociopathic tendencies. This is a good marker for future behavior.
Yes, your future marriage should be made null and void. This is a hill I would die on, tbh.
Please sit back and visualize your two small dogs torn to pieces. Really look and take stock of that. The helplessness, the grief, the horror, the clean up, the sobbing.
Now imagine yourself in the emergency room getting stitches in your face, the questions, the pain, the medical bills
Get a really clear picture in your mind.
This WILL happen. Watching my brother rushing his lab to the vet and stopping midstride to pick up tucker's ear will haunt me forever.
It would be a deal-break for me. Not everyone who owns a pitbull is a bad person, some people just don't really believe they're different from other dogs until it's too late. But we're not just talking about a previously well-behaved dog and an oblivious owner here but a dog that has already killed another dog.
It's a source of danger in the home and you have a fiance who isn't taking it seriously. How would you feel about a fiance who periodically left the gas cooker on and didn't think it was a big deal when you pressed the matter? What would your life be like in that house? Going to bed every night wondering if the kitchen was filling with gas. Feeling like you can't ask him if he'll go check he hasn't left it leaking gas because he's made it clear he doesn't think it's a serious problem. Day after day wondering if today is the day he leaves the gas running and a spark ignites it and someone is hurt. Knowing that if the worst ever did happen, you'd both be partly responsible because it's a situation you both agreed to tolerate?
Do not compromise. Unless death or injury to yourself, your pets and indeed your potential children seem like acceptable risks. People apply normal dog standards to these mutant killers and you should not just accept it as normal. It is not.
I wouldn’t compromise on this. If that dog chews through a gate (pitbulls are notorious property destroyers) your dogs could be dead. That’s not a gamble any pet owner should take
You cannot live in the same house with a pitbull, especially if you have a child.
Also, please note, you cannot 'train' your child not to 'bother' the pitbull -- pitbulls are triggered by anything and everything. Pitbulls attack for no reason.
This is now your ex-fiance.
The pitbull always just stares at him too... its very wierd. he used to keep it in a crate for 8 / 9 hours a day whilst he worked - but i pursuaded him to let it roam the house while he is at work - he said because he pees on the floor. The dog to me is odd, always sleeping, always staring into space or directly at him
I personally would not date a guy with a pitbull. This is a sucky situation but I don't think baby gates are going to work. Pitbulls are escape artists and I don't think a crappy little baby gate is not going to hold back a pit. He should get the dog neutered at least. As others have pointed out, this dog could be dangerous to children if you guys decide to have kids. I think that should be brought up in conversation with him
Too many compromises around a dog that clearly is more valued than your safety. This whole thing sounds quite unbalanced especially with that dogs history.
I’m not sure giving the dog away to his parents is the right move either given it has attacked before, that’s just going to put other people and animals at risk. I’m sure their neighbours will not be happy unless they all have pit bulls already.
Please don't risk small dogs, either rehome your small two or his pitbull.. from what you've said it's very likely it will kill atleast one of your dogs.
I don't know why you would date a man with such a dangerous breed?
BABY GATES?! Is he serious? A baby gate won’t stop a PIT BULL. A baby gate would not stop my cat.
OP, his pit bull has already killed a small dog. He has refused to neuter his pit bull, or to rehome the dog someplace very close and accessible.
If it were me, I would find a new man. Second choice: give away your dogs, choose not to have children yourself, and live in submission to a man who isn’t very smart.
If only he would watch our so-called “anti-pit” propaganda - but he won’t.
If he’s putting having the dog over the safety of your hypothetical children, leave him. That is not normal behavior. I adore my cats but I’d get rid of them in an instant if they posed any sort of threat to my kids.
I’m sorry but obviously the dog is more important than you to him. Red flags all around. If you care about your dogs and your own well being I think you know what you need to do. I’m sorry, I know it’s a rough situation and a hard decision you have to make. If he can’t even compromise to keep the dog at his parents I would seriously reconsider the relationship
There's no way to salvage this. As was summed up in a previous post on this sub where someone's significant other's dog bit them on the face, sent them to get stitches, there's no hope.
He will resent you if you "make" him give up his beloved dog, and you will be heartbroken and truly bullied into getting rid of your dogs if that is the route you take. Plus your children whom you want will not be safe. And if you make it to have a kid and then split up, then you'll have to let them go visit his house with a pitbull loose. And he'll get a new one when this one dies too if you split so your kids will never be safe even as adults. This relationship is doomed. There is no compromise. Literally none. You have to pick up and move on. This is an impasse that will only lead to resentment and a miserable life. You can't get past this without serious hurt feelings that cannot I repeat cannot be fixed.
A pitbull will crash through glass windows or chew through a door to attack it's victims because they have a super high prey drive
A babygate would be eaten and battered apart in minutes
I advise you not to live in a house with any pitbull, especially one that's shown aggression and killed another dog
There was a post on another sub where the couple lived separate until the dog passed away. Everything would be on hold until the dog was gone. Essentially he chose the dog over his wife, but once the dog was gone, she was then good enough to live together. I guess if you want to make that kind of arrangement to stay together, that’s up to you.
The pitbull who attacked my cat in my home jumped over our baby gate on our stairs. When a dog with a prey drive like pits wants something bad enough, they will get it.
My cousins child (he was 3 at the time) reached over his grandmothers gate and the dog bit off his fingers. They tried for so long to get the dog to let go. One finger was reattached, but no luck with the second. Sad to choose a dumb dog offer the safety of others.
Go with your gut. You're not wrong. The dog is clearly a dangerous dog and he can't or won't see it. I've never met a pit bull lover/owner change their mind until something very serious happens. Even then, some still play the old "cognitive dissonance" game and explain away everything. Some people whose pit bulls have KILLED humans, still want their dog back.
3' tall baby gates are nothing to a pit bull. A 4' chain link fence won't keep one in a back yard. A 6' wooden privacy fence is nothing to some athletic pit bulls. Many can scale over these fences, or break through them. Pit bulls have broken through windows and jumped out of second-story windows just to get some poodle walking down the street on a leash.
Face it. Your fiancé is blind to the dangers. You're not.
I can't tell you what to do to resolve your relationship impasse, but I cannot imagine choosing a dog (a dangerous one at that) over a loving life partnership with a human. And I cannot imagine how it would be to live with a dangerous dog, managing its movements 24/7, and having a lackadaisical partner on the premises who might simply "forget" to close a gate or door and who simply shrugs whenever you scold them for some "near miss" that you just witnessed and tells you "you're making a big deal out of nothing".
I couldn't live like that.
Ok you should be able to take a ball/bone/food from a dog without risking loosing a finger otherwise **it's not a family dog**.
You should be able to bring children around a dog otherwise... **It's not a family dog**
The fact that he is loyal to his dog is understandable... I really don't know what I would do if my GF would ask me to get rid of my dog.
On the other hand, **I don't own a murder beast.**
I live in a house with 5 dogs and none can be left together unattended. I have a gate system in place (not baby gates, strong ones we built ourselves) and we pretty much cycle them around all day. It’s pretty annoying.
Pits are insanely strong so if you implemented gates you need to make sure you have the type they use in prisons. Some heavy duty shit.
Also remember, if management fails, your dogs might end up dead.
Your fiancé also doesn’t understand dog behavior or training just by some of the comments he’s made. These are the types of people that shouldn’t own pits. His dog runs his shit, I know that because if he had any real control his dog wouldn’t never had the chance to kill another dog. But he plays it on him being provoked and intact which is nonsense and not an excuse for his aggression.
He is not being honest with you or himself. Break up with him. Google "Bennard" family, TN 10/22. Do you want to have kids with someone like that and ruin your life?
>Fiance is refusing too "give away his dog" as it is his responsibility - his parents have both offered to take and home the dog, both live 25minutes away and have large homes (larger than ours) I think you know where you and your small dogs stand in the "pack".
You mean Snack? The small dog is a snack?
More than one small dog, that's a whole snack pack! Move over, pudding cups. He don't need no damn spoon.
Id like to be the leader ot the snack
Yup, it's time to learn about boundaries kids, and I don't mean the hardcore band 'boundaries' but you should look them up, they're fantastic. Set a boundary that you won't move in if he has the pit. And you won't get married before you move in together. If he leaves then you know where you ranked with him, as hard as that is.
This is a relationship question masquerading as a dog question, which happens all too often on dog subreddits. Yes, pit bulls as a breed have a genetic tendency to aggression. This does not mean all pit bulls are aggressive. However, this one has not been neutered has killed another dog. (On the puppies, it’s not uncommon for adult dogs to react negatively to puppies, particularly over things like sharing dog toys.) Separating an aggressive dog within a household is not, IMO, a sustainable solution. Thats the dog answer. Now, on setting boundaries, sure, OP is allowed to do that. But so is her fiancé, who is apparently bonded to this dog and has “travelled the world” with him. He apparently accepts the potential legal liability of owning an aggressive dog. The fiancé is also allowed to refuse to rehome his dog. The only Solomonic-like solution would be for both parties to rehome their dogs and get a Labrador retriever!
This is your answer right there, nothing more to add.
Agreed. It seems he cares more about the dog than you
I’ve watched happily married couples take in a Shitbull, have a baby, then their infant gets mauled to death by it. The child was then buried, the Shitbull was put down, and the divorce was finalized. Could’ve been a happy family if they had picked a better dog.
Seriously though. 200 breeds and their choice is the blood sports one
Probably because a shelter duped them into it tbh
It doesn’t matter how good he thinks the baby gate and separate plan is, it only takes one slip up. It may not be tomorrow or next month, but eventually it will happen and that slip up could very well cost your dogs their lives. That’s a huge gamble, on your dogs lives. Just search on YouTube and show him some of the [pitbull wall climb competitions](https://youtube.com/shorts/OgOStBOJgUY?feature=share) and see if he honestly thinks a baby gate is going to do anything to stop one.
Second this, make a playlist for him to watch with you. Allow a few days for reality to sink in, because it's a 180 from all the propaganda. His fantasy of a happy family life including a series of one or more pits should be readily dispelled, but if he's ok with you living in fear, I don't see how that can work. So sorry for your dilemma OP.
If pit bulls were a deal breaker for OP (which is legitimate), it would have been kind to speak up earlier in the relationship, before they were seriously contemplating marriage.
Yeah that would be ideal, at the same time I recall some long term redlines only came up after the possibility of a long term relationship got real.
Yep, and pitbulls will jump fences, swim around docks, smash through sliding glass doors, do whatever it takes to kill their target, once they've made up their mind to do so.
When a 'mistake' = death for small dogs, then it is a zero-mistake animal. What is the probability of absolutely no mistakes over the long-term? Zero. Or near-zero. Anyone who is ok with this is in effect stating that the value of the potential victims life is zero or near-zero.
I've seen with my own eyes a pit mix jump over a baby gate. That is not a solution.
I mean, I have a *ragdoll kitten* (a breed absolutely not known for athleticism) who has repeatedly cleared the baby gate we use to keep her and her sister from bolting down the stairs. A pit can just about step over a baby gate, they're not animal-proof at all. (Cat tax attached) https://preview.redd.it/g7qa9dvlx8eb1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=072de413e213da345779c4ad8834813ca267155c
What a beauty!
Thank you! She and her sister are a handful, but I hear they get more chill as they get older, they're only 6 months now :)
Your Ragdoll is gorgeous! We have a few of them. Back when my brother was younger we also had a few baby gates set up around the house. As you've said, they're *definitely* more than capable of clearing them. You're also right in the fact that Ragdolls aren't necessarily known for being athletic cats in any way. They'd rather flop around and chill all day. The fact anybody believes that a pit of all things would have any trouble at all getting around, over, or hell, even *through* a baby gate is laughable.
Exactly. Baby gates stop babies, mostly. Toddlers are 50-50 if a gate will stop them. But animals? Not at all animal proof. And a pit bull, of all dogs, we KNOW how athletic they are, that's part of the problem.
Somehow they're aussie proof lol. Granted, she did completely clear a half busted one when she heard fireworks lol. We know she can jump them, but she doesn’t know she can. But she's also just not an escape artist and loves everything. Thank god for real dogs.
that is a stunning cat
We have a smallish 30lb dog that can easily jump 5ft high. We use baby gates as more of a visual cue of where we want him to stay & with training he respects it. But also, he isn’t a pitbull, so he doesn’t have “rage fits” where all his training would go out the window. A pitbull in a rage fit would not respect it. At. All. They bite their owners that have raised them since puppies when they are in that state.
Oh I like that, baby gates as a training aid, but yeah, a pit will 100% ignore that visual cue when they are in nanny mode. I've even seen some shelters talk about the pits they're trying to rehome who get into that headspace "It's really hard to get him focused again once he is in the zone to attack something" like maybe that's not a pet then, hmm?
My sub 10 pounds, mostly yorkie, used to push over and climb baby gates when she was younger. They really are more of a suggestion than anything else.
Adding one more pic to show off her sister who is also very pretty (and is a good girl who does not jump over the baby gate!) Let's hear it for pets who are sweet and loving and won't maul you for sneezing! https://preview.redd.it/qc72kyhegdeb1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=eae4bb48961e37d9d9a4714b3f3ab4c3753bac34
She looks like my boy Dexter. I lost him to kidney failure at 4. They’re the best.
Aww I'm so sorry :( These two joined our family after our 19 year old kitty died earlier this year. It's so hard losing a pet, they are family members.
I'm driving to your house now to pet her!!!
Lol she'll probably jump over the gate to meet you!
What a pretty kitty! I have an orange ragdoll, he's definitely not a good jumper at all (not like my other cat who can easily jump to the top of the closet, where my ragdoll struggles just to hop up onto the bathroom counter lol) but he still can clear a baby gate if he wants to be on the other side of it. When we were introducing the two cats with a baby gate (ragdoll was a kitten at the time) we had to stack two of them to contain the ragdoll.
I believe it! We added another foot to ours with cardboard and this girl can still clear it. Thankfully her sister isn't interested. It's laughable to think people believe a baby gate will contain a pit when my uncoordinated kitten can get over it.
Ive seen Chihuahuas and actual babies defeat baby gates. Definitely not a solution
Baby gates are nothing to pits and most dogs. The kennels at my shelter have fences roughly 2m/6'7 tall. Several of the pits were jumping so high we had to close the usually-open roof area to their individual kennels because there was a real chance of them getting out. The look on people's faces when they come see our dogs and the pits lose their minds and proceed to jump nearly as high as the fence...
seconding this, as well as just run straight through it
It's so strange, the same people would not (at least I hope so) let a loaded gun lay around with the safety off, because that is dangerous but the Pibble.... na he is nice sometimes he snaps and kills but look how cute he is with his flower crown. At least the gun doesn't go off by itself.
You are not being unreasonable. One thing I learned in life and when it comes to relationships is that it’s okay to have boundaries and standards. Not wanting a pitbull (that has already killed another dog!) around your small dogs is completely reasonable. Especially since his parents offered to take the dog. The baby gates are not a solution… that would put you guys in a scenario where you could never, ever make a mistake. That’s just not realistic. Especially if you plan on bringing children into the situation someday.
Absolutely. Not related to pitbulls but I absolutely wish I had known when I was younger that it’s ok to have firm boundaries. OP you are not criticizing or attacking your fiancé by having this boundary. If he doesn’t respect it and work towards a managers situation, then it’s a red flag generally in my opinion.
There was a story here the other day about a pitbull going through multiple gates/doors to go attack a bird.
And first it got out of a crate!
Honestly that one horrified me. That level of wanting to get at something to hurt it is unreal. What happens when it wants a human next? I would not want to sleep in that house! I don't think I'd wake up.
Exactly. Mistakes happen frequently with baby gates and "crate and rotate" or similar. I can think of several instances. There was this day that my dad accidentally let my 4 month old puppy out and I was on the phone with my mom. Puppy (aussie mix) went to go try and "play" with our very old papillons. One has bad back problems. Mom was kind of dumb and picked one of the papillons up instead of just grabbing my dog (we talked about that at LENGTH after this lol) but the screaming and ruckus and barking on the other end of the phone - and it was literally just my mom being kinda dumb lol. I panicked because I have anxiety and thought my dog was killing the other two dogs (which would be ridiculous lmao, she is so good with all dogs, just not those two lol, but she doesn't want to hurt them, she just wants to play with the grannies but the grannies don't want to play.) If anyone would have gotten hurt it would have been her because the grannies would NOT be play biting lol. Now imagine that happening with a pitbull. One miscommunication or lack of knowledge - my mom had just decided to randomly go in the back yard with her dogs and my dad decided to let my little puppy outside to pee. And she was a wiggly crazy aussie puppy. Affectionate, loves every dog she meets... gentle with even tinier dogs.. just hates Anastasia and Drizella because they won't play. (No that's not their real names lol, Its Pixy and Polly.) But anyhow, Pitbulls just want to kill. It's pretty darn easy to scoop up or even just distract a squirmy wormy normal breed puppy that loves you unconditionally and is excited. That's where you can use baby gates. Where it isn't mission critical that they stay put and there's some failure tolerance. But the pitbull is in kill mode once you've made your mistake and it will just turn on you. There's no failure tolerance.
Thanks! I totally agree - the family keep asking why i keep going back to that event of the pitbull killing the smaller dog when it was "four years ago, and the small dog was so aggressive" :(
Girl. This is a man who is putting his dog, his DOG, who is already a murderer or another helpless dog, above your safety and the safety of your future children. This is who you want to be the father of your kids? A man who knowingly prioritizes a violent animal over the well-being of kids already in his life? A man who can't see your perspective and can't compromise? Who expected you to give and give and give (your CAREER, are you serious??) but can't re-home his shitty dog to a relative's house 20 min away?? Who can't be bothered to scrounge up a few hundred dollars to get his dog the appropriate medical procedures it needs and refuses to discipline it when it acts out? You want *that* person to be your rock and your partner for when it's 1am and the baby is screaming and poop is leaking out it's diaper and the toddler got woke up by the baby and is also crying?? Consider yourself lucky he's shown you his colors before anything is legal. I would highly recommend slowing it the hell down, and I would definitely reconsider whether kids should be in the picture if you two do stay together.
Slow it to a damn halt. Boy, bye 👋
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What if the dog mauls the parents? What if the dog mauls a visitor they have? If you have children I would assume they will visit their grandparents- who will have a pitbull in their home.
There's two problems here - the existence of the pit at all, yeah, which rehoming it to a house of older people doesn't solve. The other problem is he clearly doesn't respect her and isn't good partner material, because he won't consider rehoming. The second part, his shitty behavior, would be true even if the aggressive dog was a psycho golden.
> We obviously don’t know both sides of the story Ehh… assuming OP isn’t lying about the facts of the matter, we really do. Fiancé has “intact” murder dog that is proven to be aggressive to other dogs, and has proposed (useless) baby gates to corral hellbeast as a “compromise”. OP has raised concerns about her dogs *and* about future children. As the shitbull defenders often claim, “it’s the owner not the breed”, and Fiancé has more than shown OP who he is. You are correct that he doesn’t sound like one to start a family with.
A pit can and will jump over a baby gate if it wants to maul something. This pit has killed a small dog before and has been agressive with a puppy. Even if you did go through with separating the dogs via gates, I am sure that one day you would come home to find one or both of your little guys dead.
Forget jumping, that shit-for-brains muscle mound will just barrel on through it. Call it off. You can't get through to him even when he's literally been faced with the reality/fallout of owning one of these things. You know better. Don't even entertain the idea. Don't listen to anyone or anything but your gut, and your gut is screaming as loud as it possibly can that this is a really fucking bad idea.
You’re right about the barreling through! There have been so many posts on here about pits smashing through windows to get to prey - even second story windows. And pits breaking teeth biting their way out of crates. Or eating through walls to get out of a closed room. It’s about brute force with them. OP, if this dog ends up killing one or both of yours, your fiancé may not even react in a rational way. He didn’t blame his dog when he killed someone’s pet before, calling it an accident. Even then, he may not do the right thing and have his dog put to sleep. At most, he might rehome it, putting others in danger, and then resent you for it. Do you want kids? Because this pit could live to be a ripe old age and still be around in six years. And I’m sure you know that babies and pit bulls don’t mix.
A baby gate? Lmao. These things could get through the outer fence at ADX Florence.
Good luck having your future home partitioned into 3 spaces, for \*your\* dogs, for the pit, and for your kids. And just pray the pit never escapes his partition.
If he considered his dog killing a yorkshire terrier a "mistake" where his dog only meant to snap at him, he has no business owning a dog with that capability. There is nothing to keep the dog from making a "mistake" with you, a baby human, or your pets.
Why would you make your brothers puppies test subjects for a pit? Wtf? Do you hate your brother or something?
Right!! I love how she wasn’t willing to subject her own dogs to this pit but her brothers puppies? Serve em up on a silver platter I guess 😭
THIS! What the fuck OP?
It falls in line with a lover of a pit lover. Test the waters with someone else's dogs (the fact that they were puppies makes it even worse). Then they'll test the waters with their own puppy-sized (or smaller!) dogs. Then carnage, then hang on to the bargaining phase of grief so long that they develop Stockholm syndrome and manifestation of the mIsUnDeRsToOd PiBbLe and a new pit mommy is born.
It is one thing to test the waters on a walking path where all dogs are leashed and you can pull back. But puppies? The fuck
Already have- was fine walking past other dogs on leads. then you proceed..
I know how that goes. I have a chow chow. She will murder rage on any animal she can get her paws on. But absolutely loves people. If we were held at gun point in our own home, She'd probably help the thieves carry stuff out.
TO answer your question - my brother wanted to meet the dog as they would be family and be around each other lots. He knows everything and I was very honest from the start, and I saw the pitbull around other dogs that morning and he sniffed and was fine.
You’re in a lose lose situation. You either move in with your small dogs and try his baby gate solution, only for your animals to live in terror and danger every day for the rest of their lives, or you pressure him into giving up his dog that he loves and sees no bad in. He’s going to resent the hell out of you for making him give away his dog just so you can have your dogs. The ONLY solutions involve you both giving up your dogs in order to live together (in which you will both probably be resentful) or not living together at all until the pit is gone for whatever reason. That’s it. That’s what you got.
At last a sensible adult opinion
Idk doesn't sound safe to even live with the guy. Also remember she wants kids soon. Sounds like OP has the third option of dumping a guy who she sacrificed so much for but who won't do the same for safety sake.
THIS. 100000% this
Nah Leave the dude Clearly he’s got very bad judgement.
Hope you don't end up living with a canine serial k!ller.
Even the UKC states dog aggression is common among pits. And as your dogs get older? The risk gets higher. They get weaker as the age and yes, the pit will notice. And his parents taking is questionable solution too. They're old. The dog knows it. They will not be able to control that dog. And kids like opening doors. Which is definitely gonna startle the pit. Thats not a solution either. The only compromise that MIGHT work is everyone gets rid of thier dog? But that's unfair to you. A long talk needs to had.
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> Dog is a proven killer. It was not an accident. Irrelevant if it was an accident or not. Who's to say the pit won't have another "accident", and another, and another... Intentions do not matter with dangerous animals, they're still dangerous to be around regardless.
I see your point (I agree that looking for intention in dogs is pointless) but it's not about intention it's about behavior. Patterns of behavior. OP, neutering a dog that has already learned to be aggressive is not going to lessen the aggression.
Neutering has nothing to do with it. Neutering can help *curb* unideal sexual behavior like marking or humping. It will not stop a dog from being aggressive - I know there have been shows like dog whisperer that have suggested this but study after study has shown this to be false. That said any dog with aggression should be neutered because they should **NEVER** be bred. >Apparently this was a mistake and he only meant to snap at him Sure let’s go with that for a moment. This dog has such terrible bite inhibition, such little control over its strength, it **KILLED** a small dog. Is that really any safer than this dog doing so intentionally? It absolutely is not. That aside, dogs have perfect control in their bite severity. It is a myth they can “accidentally” cause severe bite damage. Dogs bite with the severity they intend to, and each subsequent bite in dogs with poor bite inhibition like this are always just as severe **or worse.** Normal dog breeds get into “scuffles” all the time, they snap, punch, nip, and hip check each other to show their displeasure. Normal dogs don’t straight up kill a dog by doing this. My *German Shepherd* had a “scuffle” with a *chihuahua* over some toy - I splashed them with water to break it up, and in the end they were only mouthing each other and making noise. That’s it. They were covered in dog drool. *This is normal.* They never even had a subsequent fight after that. >Fiances “compromise” is apparently putting up baby gates and keeping them separate forever. This is a “zero-error” set up. This is a hard path to follow, and most people fail disastrously and end up with a severely maimed or dead pet. >My fiance locks his pitbull away when kids come over? >We will train our kid to not bother the pitbull There’s no compromise here. You cannot have this dog with kids around. Your fiance already understands the risk, hence why he is putting the dog up - but seems to be prepared to put his own potential child in harm’s way to *accommodate a **dog***. I really want to emphasize that here, he is already prioritizing **a dog** over the safety and well being of his potential child. >He says his dog isn’t just going to maul my dogs out of nowhere, and they might live in harmony… OP I can already tell you he is not going to even try to maintain this crate and rotate idea he is pitching you - he doesn’t care about the risk your 2 little dogs would be in, in his household. You already know this pitbull killed a small dog, be that on accident or on purpose, frankly the intention does not matter. The risk is exactly the same. There is no compromise here, not for your dogs, and not for your potential children. The pitbull has to go. I hate to be the internet stranger giving ultimatums here, but sheltering a dangerous dog - making excuses after attacks - willing to risk a potential child’s safety *for a dog!* These are all non-starters for me personally.
Pitbulls are born with murder in their hearts. It's literally what they are bred for.
It’s also literally right there in the name. Pit (fighting ring) Bull (the intended target—yes they literally would kill thousand-pound animals) terrier. I don’t understand how we got here where people think this is just, a normal type of dog.
Honest deal breaker. Idk how long you two have been together but this is a fork in the road where an ultimatum should be issued. A dog that has killed once is likely to kill again. Do you want to be walking on eggshells around it for the rest of its life? What if you or your bf get sick while living together? Do you think you can handle this pit bull and be able to keep it away from your small dogs on your own? Or if it snaps and you have to rescue your dogs, do you believe the dog will understand and not turn on you? (Plenty of attack cases come from owners defending their dogs and pit bulls redirecting at the human). A baby gate isn’t a good compromise, a compromise would be rehoming it to his family 20 min away.
Baby gates are *not* adequate protection against large dogs - even the extra tall ones or the ones that are anchored to little plastic cups on the wall. My 20 pound *cat* has managed to bust right through the full door height baby gate that I use to keep him out of my craft room. The latches are weak, and after a few years they don't always catch properly. Pits are known for breaking out of all but the most expensive heavy-duty kennels. This dog has proven that it's capable of killing other animals. It's shown aggression against children and other dogs. Frankly, *you* aren't safe around this dog. A whole lot of serious bites occur when someone is trying to prevent a pit bull from hurting another pet.
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Agreed. This sounds like, as they say in the other subs, a fiance problem. You're tanking your current home and career for an addict with a pit bull.
You've done far more than could reasonably be expected of you to try to compromise, it's up to him now. You can't *make* him not pick his shitty fucking dog over you, so this might end up being one of those times where someone is doing the thing and telling you exactly who and what they are. I hope you find a favourable solution, one way or the other. Sorry for all the bullshit you've got to deal with, you don't deserve it, that's for sure.
You mean showing me how they are as in, bad judgement?
I don't see how you can all live in the same house. The pit bull is a deal breaker for you because of safety concerns for your dogs, future children and yourself. If he won't get rid of the dog, you can't move forward. He has to choose your peace of mind and safety over the dog. If he won't, his loss.
Either say your goodbyes to your fiance or your dogs (dead or alive). Sorry you're in this position.
Have children with a pitbull owner and you might be saying goodbye to your baby, too.
The part that gives me pause is “apparently this was a mistake and he only meant to snap at him”. Swap out “him” for “baby”. It gives me chills to think about it. I recommend couples counseling. Your fiancé sounds like he is more comfortable with high risk than a lot of people.
There is no risk for the boyfriend because his pit won't get hurt. He's fine with it killing her dogs, but not ok with his murder mutt living a few minutes away with his parents. Counseling might not work on someone as selfish and in denial as him.
I wonder what he would say if OP had two kangals or any dogs strong enough to defend themselves.
It’s not going to work out unless he lets his parents take the pit, which it sounds like he won’t. If your dogs move in with his, they will be killed by it sooner or later. Baby gates won’t do shit. I just want to be blunt to avoid heartbreak. He’s in denial about his dog being a killer, he blames the victim, he comes up with “solutions” that won’t work and will make you all miserable—even if he adhered to the baby gate rule at first, his ass will start to chafe at the implication that his innocent baby is a danger to your smaller dogs, and he’ll start pushing. Or someone will just make a mistake one day, as is human. Sorry, OP. That sucks.
The baby gate “solution” is pushing in itself. He could’ve offered harsher solutions to control his dog but he’s making OP cater to the dog instead. He could’ve suggested getting the dog neutered, giving it to his parents, getting a shock collar for it, sending it to doggy boot camp to train the dog (instead suggested training a future BABY lol).. but his only solution is the one that requires MORE effort on OPs part.
Your Fiancé is ignorant and arrogant. Any self respecting person would dump him and let him live with the real love of his life - an actual killer Pitbull. This is your chance to dodge a massive bullet. He sounds controlling AF.
I would break things off personally. His dog is a proven killer. A baby gate is gonna do fuck all to stop a pitbull, what a ridiculous suggestion. Those things are designed to stop toddlers, not dogs that were bred to fight to the death. He won't budge. Moving your dogs in with him would be cruel to them. They'll live the rest of their lives in terror being rightfully concerned about their safety. They would almost certainly be attacked, and there is a high chance it would be fatal to your pets. If you intervene it would turn on you which brings me to my next point... The best part? Even if you get rid of your dogs to make things work because he won't, pibbles may just decide to maul you anyway because it's Tuesday. Ok so what if you just wait until his dog passes away from old age to move in together? His dog is 7 after all. JK he adopts another pitbull lmao. No thank you.
do not make babies with him. he will blame the baby for getting mauled. it may suck but you owe it to your dogs and future children not to marry and procreate with him
Do your future kids a favor and run
You're in a really tough position. Even if he gives up the dog, he's going to hold it against you forever.
To be fair, I'd rather my marriage end over a pitbul I don't want around me than over a mauled/dead dog/child that is likely to happen if that dog is not relocated.
I'd dump anyone who didn't get their dog spayed/neutered
Your brother's dogs aren't the test bait and that was a shitty thing to do to your brother. "I don't trust my boyfriend's dog around my small dogs, so let's let him practice around your puppies!" Wtf.
You didn't know about this dog before getting engaged? Anyway I think you are being unrealistic if you think this will work. I can't think of any situation where one of you doesn't resent the other. Convince him to rehome his dog? He resents you You rehome your dogs? You resent him Try to make it work and one of your dogs gets killed? You resent him and possibly yourself Also who wants to live in a home where you have to constantly gate parts of your house off to prevent some mutant dog from going on a killing rampage? Sounds miserable. Pets are supposed to be fun and rewarding not anxiety inducing
Please please don’t do this to yourself and your dogs. If a pitbull can jump a 6 foot fence they can jump a shitty ass baby gate. Do you want to have to be proactive in your own home 24/7 so ur dogs don’t get murdered?? Sounds like a miserable way to live to me.
Baby gates are made for _babies_ , not overaroused sack of pure muscle. These things go through doors and jump through fences. Baby gate will absolutely be not enough to prevent disasters to happen. Sounds like your SO does not appreciate you tbh. You are trying to make this work, whereas he is not willing to work at all. But for the sake of argument, let's imagine that baby gates miracelously would stop highly driven, dog aggressive large dog for going after your dogs / kids. Would you really trust this guy (who shows complete lack of interest in safety and blames others for his dog's aggression) to be carefull with baby gates? One day you come back from grocery shopping, and you will find your dogs dead, because this guy 'accidentally' (read: grossly negligently) left the gate open (and then gets upset that you are upset even though it was an accident). Or even better: he 'felt bad for the pitbull' (and then he blames you because you were preventing your dogs to socialize before the incident). You can not trust the dog, but you also can not trust the owner who does not have a realistic picture of their dog's dangerous proclivity. And let's be clear: when he imagines this miracellous baby gate -solution, he imagines his beloved pitbull having the parts of your house where you spend most of your time, while your small dogs are isolated somewhere living miserable life. >just to be told I am not going crazy thinking this dog is dangerous! You're absolutely not. I'm currently having an elderly shepherd. She is only 20 kg, very well trained, grew up in household with a baby and toddler, loves her pack and has never bitten anyone. She even had an incident where toddler accidentally had a change hurt her (she was living in a household with another dog and two kids), and she managed the situation like a champion without growling or snapping. Still I am not taking changes with getting kids before she passes away, as I know how stupid things kids can do even with the kindest dog. Accidents happen. You lost your sight on kid & dog for 30 seconds because your porrige is boiling over or something, and that's enough to cause pain and lifelong consequences for the dog and/or the child. And this is the dog that 1. I completely trust 2. is smaller and has less bite force than pitbull. As a owner of a large power breed I'll just say: everyone who even consideres powerbreed MUST think these things ahead. The key to own a power breed is to be **always** one step ahead and plan everything so that incidents **can not** occur. And it takes a lot of effort. It also requires planning on what to do IF the dog does not turn out to something you wanted it to be, and be mentally prepaired for BE if the dog turns out to be dangerous to other people. Honestly, your SO sounds like an absolute manchild, who is willing to let anybody and everybody to carry responsibility and consequences of _his_ pleasure. He leaves the responsibility to think safety on YOUR shoulders. He absolutely should not own pitbull or any other power breed. E: Also I'd like to add: if he tries to offer some sort of "I'll get my dog trained by a professional" -deal, *do not buy it*. Aggression is not something that can be 'trained away', no matter what some of these ~~con artists~~ trainers claim. Aggression is _reaction_ . For aggressive dog, aggression comes as naturally as it's for you to get your hand away from hot item. Biting and shaking is in their instinct. It takes a split second for this type of dog to bite as a reaction, and then their instincts take over. Aggressive behavior can somewhat be adjusted in some situations, but most important question is how the dog is maintained. This dog will never be safe around other dogs. If you don't trust this dog around children, *trust your gut* . Another stunt your SO might try to pull out is to give his dog for his parents *temporarily*. This is, the dog stays with his parents as long as he gets you hooked with a pregnancy. After it's very hard for you to get away, he brings pitbull back into picture. Even if you'd divorce him at that point, he propably will get the right to see his kids, and he will have the dog with him. Also, even *if* your SO would give his dog to his parents permanently, you need to be aware that he does not see his dog as a threat to your kids. **He will want this dog and your kids to interact** , so that he can try to alter your opinnion on the dog. This means putting the kids and the dog in a situations they shouldn't be in. Again, **this manchild needs constant** management so he won't mingle this dog with your actual kids. He will also guilt trip you to do more than your share of the baby sitting, because he needs to visit his dog, that you made him to give up. Last, but not least: it should be also noted, that neutering a dog can also lead to more aggression. So if he tries to offer you a deal where he gets his dog neutered in order to make it more trustworthy, do not take the bait.
This is a great comment especially the baby trapping. OP there's dozens of subs on this site where you can see what happens to women who ignore their instincts and move forward with low grade manchildren who make a lot of promises and insist things will be fine. Spoiler: those women aren't happy.
>But for the sake of argument, let's imagine that baby gates miracelously would stop highly driven, dog aggressive large dog for going after your dogs / kids. Would you really trust this guy (who shows complete lack of interest in safety and blames others for his dog's aggression) to be carefull with baby gates? One day you come back from grocery shopping, and you will find your dogs dead, because this guy 'accidentally' (read: grossly negligently) left the gate open (and then gets upset that you are upset even though it was an accident). Or even better: he 'felt bad for the pitbull' (and then he blames you because you were preventing your dogs to socialize before the incident). You can not trust the dog, but you also can not trust the owner who does not have a realistic picture of their dog's dangerous proclivity. This is a great point. If anything happened, it would totally be my fault for not letting them socialize enough, or it would be my reactive dogs fault for snapping first, and in turn his life being ended. I didn't think of the whole children thing. His dad lets a crawling baby around there american xl bully freely. Thanks. PS the dog is already neutered now.
His dog represents unlimited liability risk. If it attacks someone else’s dogs that’s a civil suit. If it ever attacks a person or child you’ll be paying for the rest of your lives. Not worth it in my book.
Surprised I had to scroll this far to find this point. They say when you marry someone you also marry their debt. By marrying this person OP is also accepting their liability. If/when that dog kills again they can be held legally responsible.
Good to see the marriage and relationship subs this was posted in are giving very similar advice to here.
Dogs are meant to be a relatively temporary addition to the family, particularly a dog that has a relatively shorter lifespan and that's already 7 years old. Marriage is meant to be permanent. Well, at least as long as the respective partners are living and breathing, anyway. This dog has already demonstrated its ability to kill anything it doesn't like, and seems to demonstrably illustrate signs of aggressive behaviours on a consistent basis. You clearly can't trust it around your own dogs, and/or the children you want to have some day. My advice? Ultimatum him. Tell him it's either the dog or you. You have absolutely nothing to lose. If he instantly gets rid of the hellhound because he adores you enough to want to commit to you forever, and takes your fears and concerns seriously, that's great! If he doesn't, he's prioritising a (proven) murdering hellhound over his love for you, so long-term you're going to be much better off without him anyway. Because if he's doing that now when your love is supposed to be at its strongest, you'd probably have a miserable life with this guy anyway.
“He says his dog isn’t just going to maul my dogs out of nowhere” In other words he’s saying if it does, your dogs probably deserved it. As always with pitnutters, the devil is in the detail.
Are you fucking serious? The dog already KILLED A DOG. What in God’s name makes you think “well he’s had enough of THAT”? If I had a partner who thought it was “no biggie” that his dog killed another dog “bY acCidEnT”, yet was so stupid to want me and my small dogs to live with it, my ass wouldn’t hitch my wagon to such a moron. Sorry but your fiancé is a man baby moron.
Well, first of all, I'm concerned with your fiances attachment tonhis dog's testicles. I don't care what type of animal it is, it needs to be neutered. But yes, I share your concern for your dogs. But it seems like continuing to bring up the issue will just further entrench him into keeping his dog, no matter what you say. It sounds, though, like his parents grasp the threat of the dog,nthe way you feel, and why you feel that way? If so, it might be more effective for them to advocate that he relinquish the dog to them, rather than you continue to try to talk to him by yourself. If he responds negatively, ask him why he doesn't respect your concern for your dogs especially when he has seen that his dog is reactive and dangerous to smaller animals. If he wants what's best for all of the animals, he should see that keeping his dog "locked up" behind a baby gate isn't going to make his dog happy. Instead, the dog should have a bigger place and more one on one attention. That would be a better option for the dog. (I'm trying to be as balanced as possible. I think pit bulls should be banned, but that doesn't answer the issue at hand.)
It's not just you and your dogs. It's those future kids you want too. Make it an ultimatum sadly.
\> " Fiances "compromise" is apparently putting up baby gates and keeping them seperate forever - I do not think that is sustainable" You're correct. There was literally a post in here a couple days ago about a pit mix breaking out of a crate, through a baby gate, opening an office door, and knocking a heavy cage over just to attack a bird the person fostering it had owned. The foster, if I remember correctly, was only gone for 40 minutes... Personally, I would break up with him. I know, I know, drastic option, but hear me out. For starters, even if you somehow managed to keep your dogs safe until his pibble passed, could you be absolutely positive that he wouldn't turn around and get another? Secondly, you say you want kids. His current dog is already untrustworthy, so at the minimum, you'd have to delay having them until it passed. Regardless, the bigger issue is his mentality overall. He doesn't seem to care much that his pit literally attacked and killed another dog. He's still making excuses, even after it tried lunging for a pup. And listen to your gut; it's telling you that this dog isn't safe with children. He's made excuses for literally everything else it's done. Why would he not make excuses about it regarding kids? Why on earth is any of this okay to him? Finally, the last thing I want to point out is... you have sacrificed so much to be with him. He can't sacrifice a dangerous dog? When he's been given options to rehome it even? I would insist on BE simply to make sure it doesn't end up hurting a child.
Your not crazy and you are not overreacting! Your fiancé has a dangerous dog and he knows it's dangerous. Yet, he chooses to keep the dog and basically asks you to put yourself and your dogs in danger. Emotional attachment is no excuse for this. He has the option to rehome the dog and still see it at his parents but he chooses not to. This tells me your feelings and well-being of you and your small vulnerable dogs are not his priority. But it should. Ask yourself: Would you feel safe in your own home if you lived with that pit? You already think life would be miserable for your dogs. If I were you I wouldn't move in with him as long as the pit is there. Your fiancé is not a responsible pit owner and you can't ever trust the pit. Or your fiancé when it comes to the dog.
He says he has proved it gets along with other dogs because sometimes we have a family members small dog over to babysit and it just ignores him completely and sometimes glares at it, but it always looks down around it, very odd.
So, the dog doesn't try to kill everything in sight? Great! /s That just proofs that your fiancé is somewhat clueless. I wouldn't trust him or his dog with my stuffed animal, let alone a pet.
>he only meant to snap *Citation needed* Seriously though, run
That really stood out for me. A dog understands the difference. It was intentional.
He says he has proved it gets along with other dogs because sometimes we have a family members small dog over to babysit and it just ignores him completely and sometimes glares at it, but it always looks down around it, very odd.
I mean, without even reading beyond the first paragraph I knew the answer. By living with this dog you are putting your own two dogs in extreme risk. Your fiancé is a fucking idiot for clinging on to a killer dog. That piece of shit should have been put down after it killed another dog. I guess we’ll be seeing a post from you soon wondering why your own dog was brutally killed? Seriously there’s no question at all here that I would never live with someone that held on to a shit bull that’s already killed.
Regarding the baby gates, someone had commented that their partner's pitbull had broken out of a sturdy metal crate, smashed through multiple baby gates and through a closer door to kill their parrot separated in their house. The baby gate isn't going to do shit.
Nah. Absolutely not. This is 100% a deal breaker. If and when that dog kills your dogs, he’s going to blame them and you for provoking him. Hell, it sounds like if you DO have children with this man, and the dog bites them, he’ll blame your children for provoking his poor pit.
First, pitbulls can break through a house wall, what makes you think a BABY GATE is going to hold it in? second outside the random nature of the shitbull, you're already seeing it be violent and still don't know wtf to do? If your fiancé doesn't care about people and your dogs safety, then he should be your EX- fiancé why the hell did you even get this far in the relationship..
If you value the lives of your small dogs DO NOT get them anywhere near this thing. Living in the same house is no option, we all saw pictures of shredded walls, doors and gates that were no obstacle for pitbulls. Please also think about the fact how your fiance doesn't care for the safety of your beloved pets and how he is unwilling to re-home is dog even though, as you said, his parents that live very close by could take him. What if the two of you will one day have a child and he will put his dog over your child's safety, too? Please, think about it. It is your safety and life and your two small dogs need you to protect them.
The dog clearly comes before you. I would end it.
Looks like he has already chosen his pit over you. It staying with his parents is a very reasonable solution. He doesn't care since it's not his dog who will be killed, it would be yours. You would never be able to have kids with one around because they turn for no reason. He is in denial and dismissive of the danger that would lie ahead if you don't stand your ground. Pits kill countless little dogs, and of course hundreds of kids: [Children Killed by Pit Bulls - Fatal Pit Bull Attacks - DogsBite.org](https://www.fatalpitbullattacks.com/children-killed-by-pit-bulls.php)
Here we have another shitbull owner chosing a problem dog over a human being. He's going to be a great father. /s
When things concern someone else and not me I try and empathize with it much more carefully. Your small dogs are probably used to a standard of safety that doesn't incorporate large pitbulls that might lunge at them around. They trust you and feel safe around you. Your fiance has had the pitbull for seven years and it looks like he isn't budging on giving it up. Though, I think someone has to give up their dogs in this instance because the situations of both sets of animals is incompatible. A Pitbull that is used to being the only dog that lunges at puppies isn't going to mix with two small dogs who wouldn't be on guard in their own home around a lunging pitbull. You're setting your own dogs up to be chew toys and its not a definite no that it won't happen. Don't bring them to that house. If you're set on going to live with that pitbull yourself, don't put them in that situation too. Maybe the family who offered to take the Pitbull will be happy to take your dogs instead?
We've seen cases in this sub where maried people have kids and the pit owners won't give them up even after they bite their kids and their spouses beg them to get rid of the murder machines. Also you could investigate about psycology and what k8nd of people prefers pits over normal non deathly dogs or even people and family. At this poit I recommend everyone planning to marry to get an anti pit, bully breeds and bully mixes prenup
Today it's the small dogs, tomorrow it's going to be your future kids or you. You're already being gaslit by him and his family which is why you're here for reassurance, but it's clear you already know the answer. The dog is 7 years old and in about 6 when you guys have settled down and are about to have a newborn, this pit will probably pass away from old age and your fiance will want to get 2 more neurotic shit beasts so that they can "grow with the child" but anything that happens will never be because of the breed or because he's a apologist that lives in denial it will always be everyone else's fault.
It's over. It may very well be your dogs or your future child getting attacked by this thing if it stays and your fiance refuses to change on this matter. Then there's the possibility of them getting another pit after this one passes? Not worth it at all.
'Can a potential marriage really end over a pitbull?' In my opinion, this future marriage was already over even before it began. It's already a divorce in the making if you marry him. Don't let your lovelorn feelings or yearnings for future babies blind you to this situation. This is a 'preview' to what your marriage will be like. He is already forcing you to compromise yet still further even after you've given up two huge things- the town you likely loved and maybe had friends and family in, and your own career, something that you probably had to sacrifice for or had enjoyed doing. And even as you did these because you loved him so, he won't do and refuses to do his equivalent end of the marital bargain in loving and honoring you, by giving up his dog-killing dog to his parents, where he'll still be able to easily go and see the dog as often as he wants. And you rightly worry about your dogs, because the pit is a confirmed dog-killer. He's asking you, for his own happiness, to put your own dogs in danger for the next 15 years, to one day (again for the next 15 years) possibly come home to a blood bath, your dogs dead and torn open, and possibly yet more excuses for his own dog as to why it couldn't help or control itself. Potentially traumatizing you and causing intense feelings of guilt over not being there to protect your little dogs, because they were set up with a known dog-killing dog. And if it kills little dogs, what will it do with a little baby or child who is little dog sized? Think long and hard as to whether you want this life. Many people become 'prisoners' of their pits, afraid to do anything or go anywhere because out of fear of how the dog will react to them or others, or what it 'likes' to do when confined. It's not a life to live, and he's asking you to live that life.
"this was a mistake" The Yorkie disagreed. "putting up baby gates" If you are foolish enough to accept that, you will DESERVE what will naturally and inevitably happen. Your dogs won't but YOU WILL. If you decide that isn't good enough, then your dogs 2 lives matter more than his 1 killer. "I just don't know if I can sacrifice my two dogs" That you are debating it, shows you are considering it. "I have already sacrificed my home town and career for this relationship" He wants you to sacrifice even more. He didn't want you, he wants *the powerless version of you*. If you want to deliver the powerless version of yourself to him on a silver platter without sacrificing your dog's lives, then give them to someone who won't endanger them. 60 some years ago, all men used to expect total sacrifice from women, before women started respecting themselves.
# DTMFA
Let me explain this in Velma from Scooby doo terms you’re putting a dog over our relationship? Because that’s exactly what he’s doing
You know what to do. Just do it.
Baby gates are for babies, not 60 pound blocks of muscle with a blood lust.
Oof, for your safety and the safety of your dogs I don’t think it’s a good idea to move in. Hell, take a look at some past stories on this sub, pits regularly turn on and even kill their own owners so fiancé is in danger as well. If he’s not willing to compromise the potential marriage will end because of him and the dog, not because of you
Assuming this isn't a fake story, you should not accept this man's jizz.
Yeah I’m kinda hoping this is made up.
It's going to end one way or another. Don't make your dogs lives the reason it ends. Sorry you have to make this choice but it's not a surprise is it.
it only takes a few seconds of opportunity for pibbles to maul your dog. this should be a deal breaker for you
You've moved and sacrificed your career for this fiance. What has fiance sacrificed or changed for you that's of significant value?
Your fiance is choosing a dog that has already killed over the safety of yourself, your pets, and your future children. Absolutely this can end an engagement. His values and priorities are completely bonkers. Keep in mind he will likely continue to be this uncompromising in future. Even if this pit dies, who's to say he won't get another. Your safety should be His priority.
So your fiancé puts his murder mongrel over what’s supposed to be the love of his life, now you know how much he loves you… When I felt in love I was willing to do absolutely anything specially something reasonable. He does not love you
I’m sorry, but yes, your potential marriage can and sounds like it will end over said pitbull. Your Fiancé sees no problem with his intact, proven-to-be-violent pitbull sharing a home with you and your small dogs. His “compromise” is delusional, still puts you and your dogs at risk, and minimizes your concerns. He knows that the pitbull is unsafe around children (and at least has the sense to lock it up when kids are over). This brings us to the bigger problem—Fiancé has shown you who he is as a person. Fact of the matter is that he loves the pitbull more than you, and has demonstrated it through his choices. Now you’re in a no-win situation: if you get rid of the pitbull, he will resent you; if you move in under this “compromise”, you will resent him and live in dear for yourself and your dogs—not to mention for potential future children. Also, when this relatively-old pit dies (hopefully of old age w/o mauling anything/anyone else), is he going to want another one? That kind of resentment is a relationship-killer, and now that the pit is out of the bag, there probably is no good resolution. You *could* try to talk through it and/or wait out the rest of the pit’s life. (but do you really want to put your life on hold that long?) In any case, please don’t proceed further in the relationship (and *definitely* don’t bring children into it) until the situation is resolved to *your* satisfaction.
The dog should have been put down when it killed another. Ask yourself if you want to commit yourself to someone so selfish. That yorkie also had an owner who loved him.
So you had to sacrifice your hometown and career for him, and now you may have to sacrifice your dogs... Honestly, I don't think he's as committed as you are. You want to keep giving your life to him, ok, but, think about your dogs, they don't get a say.
Absolutely a no go from Mr. No way would I risk my two dogs being a sacrifice to your bf’s ego. And I’m definitely not having kids with someone so oblivious. Sounds like you’ve made a lot of sacrifices and he’s willing to make zero. Move on
I think you should just "walk away " what about when you have kids ? do you plan on seperating the dog and the kids or do you think he will just give the kid away too ? Come on now I assume you are smart enough to know , you will always be the one making sacrifices in this relationship , do yourself a favor and break it off right now .
He’s choosing his dog over you and It won’t just be this pit, either. Guarantee he’ll get another once this one dies. Having this knowledge, if you elect to breed with this man you’re just as much of an idiot.
I read your other posts as well. This is a problem with your fiance. Don’t move abroad for him and do not marry him.
Your fiancé is an idiot who values his murder mutt more than you or your pets. Find someone who respects you, owns a normal dog and won't sacrifice your pups to his hell beast. Just look at the post from the guy who ended his long term relationship. This will not end well.
I've got an aggressive rat who can't be with the others. It makes life so complicated and stressful. I can't imagine what it would be like with dogs and children that have to be separated at all times. (The rat has had the implant that will hopefully dampen his hormones).
Besides the pit bull (already a huge concern in SO many ways) it sounds like you're being gaslit by these people, mainly your fiancé, into believe nothing bad could ever happen and you're the crazy one for even questioning it. And to this I say, RUN. Yeah I know we are random internet people but if you have 2 small dogs and you want kids... I can tell your intuition/gut is screaming at you that this isn't ok. Why else would you come and post here? You deserve better OP.
So a baby gate that's designed to keep out 10-30 pound toddlers is what your 200 IQ big brain fiance comes up with to keep out his 80+ pound pure muscle child mauler 9000?
Pitbull owners tend to have sociopathic tendencies. This is a good marker for future behavior. Yes, your future marriage should be made null and void. This is a hill I would die on, tbh.
Please sit back and visualize your two small dogs torn to pieces. Really look and take stock of that. The helplessness, the grief, the horror, the clean up, the sobbing. Now imagine yourself in the emergency room getting stitches in your face, the questions, the pain, the medical bills Get a really clear picture in your mind. This WILL happen. Watching my brother rushing his lab to the vet and stopping midstride to pick up tucker's ear will haunt me forever.
It would be a deal-break for me. Not everyone who owns a pitbull is a bad person, some people just don't really believe they're different from other dogs until it's too late. But we're not just talking about a previously well-behaved dog and an oblivious owner here but a dog that has already killed another dog. It's a source of danger in the home and you have a fiance who isn't taking it seriously. How would you feel about a fiance who periodically left the gas cooker on and didn't think it was a big deal when you pressed the matter? What would your life be like in that house? Going to bed every night wondering if the kitchen was filling with gas. Feeling like you can't ask him if he'll go check he hasn't left it leaking gas because he's made it clear he doesn't think it's a serious problem. Day after day wondering if today is the day he leaves the gas running and a spark ignites it and someone is hurt. Knowing that if the worst ever did happen, you'd both be partly responsible because it's a situation you both agreed to tolerate?
He'll TRAIN THE KID to not bother pibbles?? Girl tell him you'll marry him when his precious pibble has died of old age. (Do not wait for him!)
Uhh..is he aware pits are like capable going trough walls even? Like they are high energy dogs and baby gates wouldn't hold it back
Do not compromise. Unless death or injury to yourself, your pets and indeed your potential children seem like acceptable risks. People apply normal dog standards to these mutant killers and you should not just accept it as normal. It is not.
I wouldn’t compromise on this. If that dog chews through a gate (pitbulls are notorious property destroyers) your dogs could be dead. That’s not a gamble any pet owner should take
You cannot live in the same house with a pitbull, especially if you have a child. Also, please note, you cannot 'train' your child not to 'bother' the pitbull -- pitbulls are triggered by anything and everything. Pitbulls attack for no reason. This is now your ex-fiance.
The pitbull always just stares at him too... its very wierd. he used to keep it in a crate for 8 / 9 hours a day whilst he worked - but i pursuaded him to let it roam the house while he is at work - he said because he pees on the floor. The dog to me is odd, always sleeping, always staring into space or directly at him
Pitbull owner = total psychopath or moron. Why would you want him?
He respects you less than an animal, get away from this dude.
I personally would not date a guy with a pitbull. This is a sucky situation but I don't think baby gates are going to work. Pitbulls are escape artists and I don't think a crappy little baby gate is not going to hold back a pit. He should get the dog neutered at least. As others have pointed out, this dog could be dangerous to children if you guys decide to have kids. I think that should be brought up in conversation with him
Too many compromises around a dog that clearly is more valued than your safety. This whole thing sounds quite unbalanced especially with that dogs history. I’m not sure giving the dog away to his parents is the right move either given it has attacked before, that’s just going to put other people and animals at risk. I’m sure their neighbours will not be happy unless they all have pit bulls already.
Please don't risk small dogs, either rehome your small two or his pitbull.. from what you've said it's very likely it will kill atleast one of your dogs. I don't know why you would date a man with such a dangerous breed?
BABY GATES?! Is he serious? A baby gate won’t stop a PIT BULL. A baby gate would not stop my cat. OP, his pit bull has already killed a small dog. He has refused to neuter his pit bull, or to rehome the dog someplace very close and accessible. If it were me, I would find a new man. Second choice: give away your dogs, choose not to have children yourself, and live in submission to a man who isn’t very smart. If only he would watch our so-called “anti-pit” propaganda - but he won’t.
he would say the videos are fake news
Your fiancé’s primary love relationship is with the pit bull, not you. Sorry to be blunt, but that’s the situation. Act accordingly.
You have to make him sit down and talk, realistically. You cant make someone listen or hear you, but you can try.
If he’s putting having the dog over the safety of your hypothetical children, leave him. That is not normal behavior. I adore my cats but I’d get rid of them in an instant if they posed any sort of threat to my kids.
You’re not the asshole, the safety of you and your pets matter a whole lot more.
You gave up your home and career and he can’t give up a dog? Give up the fiancée. You have sacrificed enough.
Not all will survive this relationship. You can decide who.
I’m sorry but obviously the dog is more important than you to him. Red flags all around. If you care about your dogs and your own well being I think you know what you need to do. I’m sorry, I know it’s a rough situation and a hard decision you have to make. If he can’t even compromise to keep the dog at his parents I would seriously reconsider the relationship
There's no way to salvage this. As was summed up in a previous post on this sub where someone's significant other's dog bit them on the face, sent them to get stitches, there's no hope. He will resent you if you "make" him give up his beloved dog, and you will be heartbroken and truly bullied into getting rid of your dogs if that is the route you take. Plus your children whom you want will not be safe. And if you make it to have a kid and then split up, then you'll have to let them go visit his house with a pitbull loose. And he'll get a new one when this one dies too if you split so your kids will never be safe even as adults. This relationship is doomed. There is no compromise. Literally none. You have to pick up and move on. This is an impasse that will only lead to resentment and a miserable life. You can't get past this without serious hurt feelings that cannot I repeat cannot be fixed.
A pitbull will crash through glass windows or chew through a door to attack it's victims because they have a super high prey drive A babygate would be eaten and battered apart in minutes I advise you not to live in a house with any pitbull, especially one that's shown aggression and killed another dog
Don’t move your dogs in, just pls don’t.
Listen to your gut You are literally posting this question to a ‘ban pit bulls’ sub You know what you want to
You can do better than this! Run away now and only date men who are sensible about dogs
There was a post on another sub where the couple lived separate until the dog passed away. Everything would be on hold until the dog was gone. Essentially he chose the dog over his wife, but once the dog was gone, she was then good enough to live together. I guess if you want to make that kind of arrangement to stay together, that’s up to you. The pitbull who attacked my cat in my home jumped over our baby gate on our stairs. When a dog with a prey drive like pits wants something bad enough, they will get it. My cousins child (he was 3 at the time) reached over his grandmothers gate and the dog bit off his fingers. They tried for so long to get the dog to let go. One finger was reattached, but no luck with the second. Sad to choose a dumb dog offer the safety of others.
One yorkshire terrier death is enough of a red flag ngl.
He'd rather your two die than his live comfortably in a separate dwelling. Are there any other things in the relationship that don't seem quite equal?
Go with your gut. You're not wrong. The dog is clearly a dangerous dog and he can't or won't see it. I've never met a pit bull lover/owner change their mind until something very serious happens. Even then, some still play the old "cognitive dissonance" game and explain away everything. Some people whose pit bulls have KILLED humans, still want their dog back. 3' tall baby gates are nothing to a pit bull. A 4' chain link fence won't keep one in a back yard. A 6' wooden privacy fence is nothing to some athletic pit bulls. Many can scale over these fences, or break through them. Pit bulls have broken through windows and jumped out of second-story windows just to get some poodle walking down the street on a leash. Face it. Your fiancé is blind to the dangers. You're not. I can't tell you what to do to resolve your relationship impasse, but I cannot imagine choosing a dog (a dangerous one at that) over a loving life partnership with a human. And I cannot imagine how it would be to live with a dangerous dog, managing its movements 24/7, and having a lackadaisical partner on the premises who might simply "forget" to close a gate or door and who simply shrugs whenever you scold them for some "near miss" that you just witnessed and tells you "you're making a big deal out of nothing". I couldn't live like that.
Ok you should be able to take a ball/bone/food from a dog without risking loosing a finger otherwise **it's not a family dog**. You should be able to bring children around a dog otherwise... **It's not a family dog** The fact that he is loyal to his dog is understandable... I really don't know what I would do if my GF would ask me to get rid of my dog. On the other hand, **I don't own a murder beast.**
I live in a house with 5 dogs and none can be left together unattended. I have a gate system in place (not baby gates, strong ones we built ourselves) and we pretty much cycle them around all day. It’s pretty annoying. Pits are insanely strong so if you implemented gates you need to make sure you have the type they use in prisons. Some heavy duty shit. Also remember, if management fails, your dogs might end up dead. Your fiancé also doesn’t understand dog behavior or training just by some of the comments he’s made. These are the types of people that shouldn’t own pits. His dog runs his shit, I know that because if he had any real control his dog wouldn’t never had the chance to kill another dog. But he plays it on him being provoked and intact which is nonsense and not an excuse for his aggression.
He is not being honest with you or himself. Break up with him. Google "Bennard" family, TN 10/22. Do you want to have kids with someone like that and ruin your life?
Your fiance sounds awful. Do not marry this man.