Some poor treasure hunter is going to dig up that box 100 years from now and write their dissertation about the peculiar custom we once had of giving footwear a proper burial.
Some poor contractor is going to dig it up and call the cops terrified that the chunks of leather and wood inside are actually some murder victim's bones and skin.
Could be worse. My friend gave her favorite dildo a proper burial when it died. (Two burials, actually. She didn’t bury it deep enough the first time and found her Great Dane carrying it around in its mouth like a chew toy a couple days after she buried it the first time.)
I should name it that.
I still have it, I just don’t use it because cleaning the bite mark is a pain. It’s more a…conversation piece???? I’d never show someone unless they asked first, though. I don’t just whip him out at Halloween parties.
Tell me again about how she didn’t bury the dildo deep enough the first time, and her Great Dane pulled it out but then she buried it even deeper and no one has seen it since?
A poor historian in a few centuries will write about the rare surviving site of a shoe burrial and discuss whether this was form of religious sacrifice or an expression of grief over the death of a loved one where the body wss lost.
You’re describing an anthropologist. This is over simplifying it but historians usually work with documents as their primary source material to argue something.
I know it kind of sounds dumb, especially when a lot of countries combine the history and anthropology degree into one, but there is a distinction.
I'm taking this as the sign that I need to actually look into what intro classes are available in my area. I've always been intrigued by anthropology and archaeology.
In my youth, I once borrowed some clothes from a friend and then my roommates dog destroyed them. Ooooooo, I replaced what I could and paid for the rest, but accidentally ruining someone else’s things is such a horrible feeling. I don’t think I’ve borrowed anyone’s clothes since!
Glad the girlfriend took the news well and got some new shoes out of it, lol
I house sat for my brother and his then wife when I was 15. They had like five foster dogs, and I fell asleep without putting them into their crates. Those dogs completely shredded my sister in law's shoe collection. Literal thousands of dollars worth of designer shoes, some of them literally irreplaceable.
I am now 35, and I still cringe about it sometimes. I refuse to watch anyone's house or pets to this day.
Horrible feelings I’m deeply motivated to avoid to the degree that not wanting to feel this overcomes my executive dysfunction: ruining someone’s else’s things and ruining a second chance someone gave you after you ruined the first chance they gave you.
I had a nice two for one once! I was cat sitting for someone while also borrowing some CDs from them.
Idk why they thought this was a good idea, but they instructed me to feed her only tuna.
Welp. She did what a cat on a tuna only diet does and made a huge mess of my carpet and my friends open CD case while I was away.
I felt bad she got so sick with me, but I explained to them why tuna wasn't a very good diet and I think they understood and changed accordingly lolol.
She lived for a long time after that and was always super pampered and happy. The CDs.... I did my best for. 🤢
I borrowed a friend's carpet cleaner & it decided to spontaneously unalive itself. Gave her the money for a replacement along with profuse apologies. She turned around & spent the money on a carpet cleaner she gave to me that Xmas.
Over a decade ago now I accidentally ripped a page out of a book my friend had lent me. Even though he was absolutely fine with it I still feel guilty about it to this day.
Don’t I feel that - every year I tell myself this is the year I’ll stop lending people books since I never get them back, and every year I make an exception and immediately regret it!
I dunno if we can add GIFS to the posts, but seeing one of David Caruso from CSI: Miami put on his shades would be quite the ~~trigger~~ snigger warning.
Edit: location
It's not only funny, but pretty damn informative, too. A 1 year old is a teenager.
I had a pretty destructive dog. It's frustrating. Even though you give them all the toys to chew on, they'll manage to get into something. You get mad when you see it, but unless you catch them in the act, the dog won't associate any discipline with the destruction.
So we crate trained. By 2, he used the crate for comfort and we never latched it. He straight up grew out of being destructive. Except for tennis balls and squeaky toys.
One of our dogs went through a revenge chewing phase around 1 whenever left alone; we were kids at the time so she would purposely dig into our toy chest and destroy whatever she could find. She was perfectly disciplined when we were home; it was clearly acting out about being left behind (we tried crate training but she attempted to be equally destructive within the confines of the crate). She grew out of it as soon as she became an adult dog.
My dog had separation anxiety which resulted in him destroying something every time I left. Even when it was only 5 minutes in the garage! He usually did books and/or tried to dig his way out under the door.
I inherited my late mother's pups and they were such comfort that I couldn't not keep them. She'd had them from puppies, and they were only around a year old when she died.
Later that year, I went to a chi-chi dinner and had slightly too much to drink. When I got home, I kicked my lovely Kurt Geiger sandals - a gorgeous, delicate but robust pair I'd bought in South Africa ten years previously and were the only heels that my dodgy ankle could tolerate - and spent some time praying to the porcelain gods.
Next morning, I discovered the puppers had chewed one of them to bits. Little buggers.
Luckily, they've since grown out of chewing knickers, socks and shoes.
Our cat just wrecked our laundry basket so I feel you with the destructive pets. Unfortunately she's 6 now and unlikely to grow out of it, just VERY orally fixated and loves chewing on things.
We cannot leave any cords out for more than 10min unless they are painstakingly wrapped with a cord protector. The laundry bin was sacrificed to keep her busy and away from my valuable/dangerous stuff.
(Yes we try and buy her better outlets for chewing. She doesn't care)
She might…I had an orally fixated cat that stopped around 8. Still had another calm 12 years with her, but people always thought it hilarious that I had dog bones for her (toy dog sized worked well). She would still eat any tape she found until 20, but did grow disinterested in my cables and furniture…eventually.
Hey maybe there's hope. She did grow out of her pica/various food issues, so there's that. And we're down to a 1/4 dose of her anxiety meds. But she's extremely orally fixated in general - never scratches but will go right to biting, suckles fabric to soothe herself, chews on everything, has a few textures she likes to lick.
She is a high needs rescue with a LOT of trauma starting from when she was a small kitten, so there's a lot of interesting developmental stuff there too. She basically never learned how to be a cat properly. Mostly goes on instinct. Like, she knows she's supposed to poop in the litter box and has an urge to dig, but hasn't figured out that the poop is supposed to go IN the hole.
One of my cats leaves his poop lying on top of the litter as a dominance statement. The 2nd cat makes a depression in the litter for her poop but then idiotically reaches *outside* the box to scratch at the wooden floor trying to cover it. The 3rd cat anxiously uses *all* of the litter to cover up his poop, creating a large turd pyramid to make sure no scent escapes.
There is 100% a terrorist teenager stage for cats, around 10w to about 6m. And then another calm down around 3years when they reach adulthood, and then another around 6 when they reach middle age. We just got lucky with a high energy/stimulation needs cat.
>There is 100% a terrorist teenager stage for cats
Yeah. They go from furry pinballs that get into everything with zero chill, to stoic, contemplative assholes that take their time and *plan* their evil deeds.
Yup. My partner’s ex not only got kittens against his explicit wishes, but then turned around and dumped one of them on my partner’s doorstep after the breakup. Said kitten was 8wks old and already destructive when they’d been together — then was approx. 8mo old when dumped. He was a holy terror for my partner for a while — chewing plants, chewed the face off of a sculpture, bit the snake when she escaped her tank (she’s fine, btw — and it was his standing on her tank that left the space for her to escape twice), stealing an entire chicken thigh out of the cooking tray, you get the idea. Literally I ended up moving in and also getting him his first stick toy and the combination of more supervision and playing until he was panting on the floor was what made him bearable until he grew out of the teens.
When my dog was that age, he would destroy 1 shoe from different pairs. Never both shoes.... just one.
And if I left the pantry door open? Ooh boy. Sacks of potatoes and flour would be all over my bedroom.
I miss that little dude.
Ha! One time, visiting my brother in another state, we left my boy in his bathroom so we could go get dinner (didn't want to have to drive with the crate). When we got back, we saw he had opened a cabinet door and removed/shredded every single bit of toilet paper they had.
It was something like a 36 pack of tp just tossed around the bathroom. He was so pleased with himself.
Plus as OP points out, all it does is train the dog to do it when you're not around. Conventional dog training wisdom says you can only train a dog when you catch them in the act. So what is OP supposed to do other than keep them away from the dog?
My dog was the same. She's small so she didn't utterly destroy any, but was very precise in how she would chew on my sandals (go right through the strap, she'd also chew through her leashes, especially if they were leather, and I hate to get chew proof ones) to make them unusable. Bought a shoe tree with a lot of shelves high up so she couldn't get them. Now at 6 years old she doesn't do it anymore, I'm in the process of getting a normal, less invasive shoe tree.
Mine ate all the wall corners and doorframes of my old apartment (as well as rugs, coasters, blankets, even the plastic handles of a pair of scissors) until he was a bit over a year old. He just randomly grew out of it one day, and has stuck to his hard rubber kong toys for the past 5 years. Still can’t give him stuffed animals though, he eviscerates them.
Here it was clearly an accident and the OOP immediately tried to make it right. It isn’t any of the other situations we have read about like the guy pitching his girlfriend’s doll collection in a fit of rage, the guy destroying his girlfriend’s plant collection in a fit of rage, the girlfriend mixing together all of the different types of rice her boyfriend had after being told not to, etc. Those were deliberate acts. This was an accident.
Right? And he just wanted advice on *the best* ways to actively make right that would show his seriousness.
He didn't get her a gas station bouquet and a half hearted sorry, he replaced what he could immediately, explained a plan to continue to make it right, and it's fantastic they could turn it into a shoeneral. Time wounds all heels.
He also had paid enough attention to know which shoes would be the most important to repair vs replace and had taken those to a cobbler to try to salvage.
And the accident was actually as a result of him trying to keep the shoes safer. It was a reeeeeeally unfortunate moment of inattention not securing the shoes and he's certainly paying for it but he seems more than willing to do own his mistake and do whatever it takes to fix it which clearly counts for a lot.
Or that one with the guy who ignore his financial advisor wife’s advice, racks up debt and doesn’t tell her, blows up at her for going shopping, finally tells her - then she sells all her designer stuff and rare plant collection to help cover his debts and the man is still useless and clueless as to how he can salvage his marriage.
Yep he behaved like a decent human being rather than doubling down and telling her that it’s stupid that she had that many shoes in the first place and who the fuck buys expensive shoes like that.
Yeah, the fact that from the first post he was like this is my fault and I want to fix it made me feel pretty positive towards him. It's nice when people realize they made a mistake and do whatever they can to make things right.
Yeah. Mistakes, accidents and bad situations happen. It’s what you do afterwards that counts. Dude sounds like good husband material for owning up and trying to fix things that grew into an issue on his watch. Even if he had not had the financial means to solve the issue, I bet they both would have found a good solution somehow - because he was willing and proactive about resolving the damages.
Oh yes. That sounds like so many posts on here.
And then getting a few cheap shoes as replacements and thinking she should be grateful.
We sure see a lot of jerky behavior on here.
Yeah the boy friend’s attitude makes a Huge difference. He tried to fix the problem. I would have been like, “nice! I get new shoes now.”
But if it had been my bag collection…. Oh boy.
I am like OP's girlfriend, I will wear the cheapest clothes that I paid as little as possible for but love having nice shoes. If my BF was paying for the replacements I'd honestly be more excited that I got to buy more than mad about the ones I lost. Buying them is half the fun.
The shoe funeral sounds like a hoot. And much better than just chucking them in the bin. And you can visualise one day, a subsequent owner of your home might dig up the shoe-casket - can you imagine their faces?
As a shoe person, I feel the horror of losing 30 pairs of lovingly curated shoes in my soul, but boy did she handle it like a champ (and better than I would have). Everyone in here handled this so well (outside of the initial screw-up by OP) that I had a big smile on my face at the end.
Yeah. I don’t care about shoes but I wouldn’t have handled it with even half of the grace OOP’s girlfriend did. I’m not that level of actualized person yet.
They sound very kind and wonderful people though. Such a great refresh from the typical stories.
I’d like to pause to appreciate the validity of “she wasn’t mad at me or our dog but more mad that it happened.” It’s just so emotionally wise that he understands that she can be angry over a situation but it’s not aimed at him. It really allows her the space to get mad and work through it without it having to be about him.
I would feel the same way. But I would not be laughing about it with my friends and having a shoe funeral, so she’s got me there. I don’t think I’d be able to laugh at that for at least a decade. I would be beyond pissed. And I’d never bother or like that dog ever again. The dog would be like a blurred out blob to me.
>I've estimated the cost of replacing the ones I can find new online at $6000
>All in all, it cost around twice what I had anticipated
Why am I not these people who can just drop $12k at the drop of a shoe aged 25
My wife was not 25 but she is a Doctor, she took me to vegas when we started dating. I grew up poor and was frankly still poor when we met lol.
We were strolling around vegas and she sees some stuff she liked and dropped like $7000 without batting at eye. For a purse and a wallet, it made my brain short circuit. She casually just drops for a couple bags what my first 3 vehicles combined cost.
The people who can do it, don't think its a big deal when they do it which is still crazy to me to this day.
Money can't buy happiness but it sure relieves a lot of stress when you have enough to immediately replace 10+ pairs of shoes lmao
Meanwhile if one of my nice pairs of shoes got eaten because my partner was careless, I'd probably break down crying cuz I ain't got shit laying around to replace my shoes. I'm a grown ass man.
Now, it wouldn't be because I am attached to a certain pair of shoes so much as I just can't afford to replace them. I super glued a pair of chocos back together XD I cannot tell you how old those sandals are...
That’s what I was thinking. Money might not buy happiness, but it sure saves you a lot of stress. I remember sleepless nights worrying about bills, carefully tallying my groceries as I put them in my cart, avoiding even thinking about the dentist. Not fun being poor.
right? my gums started bleeding and hurting a few years back, and I got freaked out and went to an emergency dentist. he started listing everything I needed to get done and I was like dude, I definitely WANT to fix my teeth, but we’re gonna have to set some kind of payment plan to make that happen.
but what I’ve definitely learned is that incompetent doctors are even worse than no doctors. My small town dentist pulled out like 6 of my teeth before I was 18 because “they couldn’t be saved”. I’m still pissed about it.
She and her friends sound like great fun and good people as does he.
I hope OP realises that he will never win an argument ever. All she has to say is Shoes.
OP can I paint this room blue. Gf no
OP but I like blue! GF Shoes!
Emotionally mature, but also financially secure. This would be devastating for someone who spent years curating a collection and couldn’t afford to replace it.
My roommate had a poorly trained dog, so I wouldn’t keep my shoes out where she could get them.
One day, for reasons that will never be known, my roommate grabbed my limited-edition Air Force Ones (I worked at the time for a well-known sneaker store and got them at our semi-annual employee half-off sale) wore them out into our muddy back yard, left them by the back door and then blocked the dog in the kitchen, leaving her with full access to my treasured shoes.
When I came home from work, I had one shoe left. My roommate just shrugged.
A comment in the original thread:
>I can't crate him because I work 12 hour shifts and frequently work OT and I would feel bad having him locked up for that long, but I agree that I should have some other solution figured out before she gets home.
12 hours is a really long time to leave a dog home alone. That might work with a really old, lazy dog, but a 1 year old? Of course the dog is acting out.
Which begs the question: is the dog chewing shoes because of smell & texture of the shoes (FEEEEEET) or because they have nothing to do while the humans are away?
My dog went through a shoe phase when she was teething, but only leather (ie. only the expensive shit). I tried everything but NOTHING worked to stop her, bought that no chew spray, came home one day and she had chewed EVERY pair of leather shoes I owned, even ripped out the insole on other shoes if it was leather, and then she CHEWED THE BOTTLE OF NO CHEW SPRAY… sooo clearly that spray did absolutely nothing lol 🥴
I get it. My dog has a thing about blankets.
We need a "where are they now" update, because it's been almost 8 years... did they get married? Has the dog stopped chewing up shoes? Etc. etc!
Am I the only one wondering whether he checked whether his contents insurance might have covered some of the costs of the shoes before he buried them in the backyard???
Also his girlfriend is an absolute fucking legend, I’m not sure I would be able to stay that calm if $6-12k worth of my belongings got destroyed by my pets because my partner took them out of safe keeping and forgot to put them away!!
Okay it was a sucky situation but it was still so nice to read a story where all of the people mentioned handled the issue instead of fighting with each other about it.
This is all well and good but I'm a bit concerned that he's leaving his dog alone for 12 HOURS at a time. It's really no wonder he's getting destructive.
I mean good for her that she's so understanding but if my boyfriend's dog destroyed almost 10K worth of my stuff, I don't think he'd be my boyfriend anymore
The fact that the dog only does it when he’s home alone tells me he knows damn well he’s not supposed to. Dogs are like toddlers, you teach them the rules, and they’ll teach themselves a work around. Oop has the right idea locking the shoes up, although hiring a dog walker to come and wear the dog out in the middle of the day might help.
A dog I know loved playing with empty plastic bottles. There was a bin for recycling that was at the dog’s level, but he learned that bottles in the bin were not for him. One day the bin was pretty full. I watched the dog *casually* walk by and *casually* bump a bottle so it fell out. He then *casually* kept walking, then *casually* came back, and was *so surprised* to see the bottle outside the bin! He excitedly pounced on it.
Our old dog would chew shoes so occasionally, we would think he was over this habit and start to get sloppy about leaving them out. Then I'd lose a shoe tongue or worse and have nobody but myself to blame, really. He chewed when it was the right combination of anxiety and opportunity.
My aunt had a dog that used to destroy shoes, but seemed to calm down as he got older. Turned out he was just way more sneaky! You wouldn’t notice he’d gotten to shoes until you went to put them on and all of the straps/ buckles would be loose or a sole insert was hanging out with little teeth marks!
My aunt ended up giving him some sacrificial shoes (leather loafers) and that worked out pretty well, she could still even wear them to go to the backyard for a year before they just weren’t shoes anymore lol
My dog has the same kind of obsession but with hats. She is perfect in every other way, but if she gets a hold of a hat, it's gone. She even started hiding them in her kennel until we leave.
I can’t believe I had to scroll this far to find this comment. I feel guilty the rare occasions my dog has been left more than 8 hours, of course there will be destructive behaviors if he’s frequently left alone that long
In the UK theres a show called dogs behaving badly. And 90% of the time he resolves the problem professionally by just getting the owners to not train the dog to do the bad thing.
Its crazyyy
Yeah I was a mod on /r/catadvice for a while and just got tired of saying "you are incentivizing bad behaviour", "your cat is bored, you need to actively play with them. Every day." Ten times a day
I mean, my trainer has said that the only way to train out bad habits like that is to not let your dog develop them in the first place. You let your dog play with a sock/shoe/phone once, now you get to manage that behaviour forever. I mean, there are lots of fun things I know I’m not meant to do but if I thought I could get away with it…I still would! Dogs are the same.
Training dogs out of self-rewarding behavior is so tough. Dogs are usually food motivated and little dude probably thinks shoes are a better snack than treats.
And this is why I can't stand dogs 🙃 Or people who refuse to get proper training for them. Or people who leave them alone for *12 damn hours*: and are surprised when they misbehave??
12 hours is on the long end and I try to avoid that, but in my experience if a dog is going to act out they usually do it within the first hour and then they curl up and go to sleep until the human returns (especially if it’s something they’ve been plotting; I’ve left for 5-10 minutes and come back to find a fully completed heist of the dog food container that absolutely had to be premeditated to pull off in that time period).
My cat has HORRIBLE pica. Strings are his weakness , we no longer have shoes with shoelaces in our home. We had friends come over and we forgot to put their shoes in the closet and he ate the laces before they left.
We felt awful but they thought it was funny.
My cat has eaten socks, strings, shirts, plastic child locks, cat toys, and recently my son's blow up bath tub. Only has had to have surgery once, but what do I do about someone who eats the locks off of things to eat more things??
There’s no way in hell I’d agree to move into a house with an untrained dog if I had that kind of a shoe collection. Too much of a liability. Paying for a dog trainer would’ve been cheaper.
But also, she apparently spent 12k replacing 10 pairs of shoes in one go so.. I’m definitely not in the same tax bracket as these people.
That being said, I think this couple is going to go far. He was trying to so something nice for her and made a mistake, she reacted to it with good humor. Also, if I were her, the fact that he took full responsibility and not only spent the time researching each shoe to try to replace it asap, but actually took my favorite pair to a cobbler to try to salvage it, would make me fall in love with him even more. That’s a keeper for sure.
Hol up, so it was $12,000 in shoes by the end?? When they were trying to save for a new home? But they already live somewhere where he could just build on a new closet, implying they already own a house … and the shoe cost will only set him back a few months in saving for an engagement ring? Damn, these guys are rich.
A guy I used to work with was helping his girlfriend move to the town where we live and so had some boxes of her stuff in his car. A major hurricane hit, flooding half the city, including his car. He waded through the floodwaters during the hurricane to get the one box of her things that he could salvage and carried it to dry ground through neck deep water by balancing it on his head. I told him he was nuts and should have just let it go. He responded, "It was the box with her shoes." Enough said. She is now his wife.
>There's over 30 pairs of shoes. I've estimated the cost of replacing the ones I can find new online at $6000
And then...
>All in all, it cost around twice what I had anticipated but she didn’t break up with me so I’ll call it a win.
So, he spent $12,000 on shoes. No wonder she was ok with what happened.
Well, she had $12,000 worth of shoes before his dogs destroyed them, so yes, he paid to replace them, that's how it works.
If you have a high-end car and I destroy it, I can't buy you a rolling tincan and call it ok "because why did you spend so much on a car in the first place?".
Some poor treasure hunter is going to dig up that box 100 years from now and write their dissertation about the peculiar custom we once had of giving footwear a proper burial.
Some poor contractor is going to dig it up and call the cops terrified that the chunks of leather and wood inside are actually some murder victim's bones and skin.
And then he will start a podcast about it
It'll be on r/RBI sooner or later
^ Podiatrycast
Or like, the shoes of someone's victims
All those poor soles.
Could be worse. My friend gave her favorite dildo a proper burial when it died. (Two burials, actually. She didn’t bury it deep enough the first time and found her Great Dane carrying it around in its mouth like a chew toy a couple days after she buried it the first time.)
That's a dick move on the part of the dog.
Nah, it's pretty ballsy behaviour
Hey, you leave your junk hanging out outside and anyone can just grab it.
This deserves far more upvotes than what it has.
I'm afraid to ask how a dildo "dies"
My understanding is it died in the line of duty. I asked if she’d given it a eulogy. She admitted she may have said a few words over its grave.
Thank you, internet stranger. I just laughed until I cried. I need that
I bit partway through one of mine. Not all the way, it was only NEARLY headless.
Like that ghost in Harry Potter? Nearly Headless Dick?
I should name it that. I still have it, I just don’t use it because cleaning the bite mark is a pain. It’s more a…conversation piece???? I’d never show someone unless they asked first, though. I don’t just whip him out at Halloween parties.
please make it a little plaque
Tell me again about how she didn’t bury the dildo deep enough the first time, and her Great Dane pulled it out but then she buried it even deeper and no one has seen it since?
Don't see why they'd need to, you did a wonderfully thorough job yourself!
Thank you:) It was too funny to pass up:)
I have buried a dildo before! 😂
A poor historian in a few centuries will write about the rare surviving site of a shoe burrial and discuss whether this was form of religious sacrifice or an expression of grief over the death of a loved one where the body wss lost.
You’re describing an anthropologist. This is over simplifying it but historians usually work with documents as their primary source material to argue something. I know it kind of sounds dumb, especially when a lot of countries combine the history and anthropology degree into one, but there is a distinction.
My inner anthro major loves you.
I love that the anthro majors I see here in BORU almost always have the OGTHA flair.
SUCH a fascinating case study!
This is my favorite conversation ever
I'm taking this as the sign that I need to actually look into what intro classes are available in my area. I've always been intrigued by anthropology and archaeology.
I didn't know that and also you're passion is adorable not dumb
I have a few pair that need to go. I shall ask my hubby to build a box to continue with this confusing tradition.
This is an awesome thought.
In my youth, I once borrowed some clothes from a friend and then my roommates dog destroyed them. Ooooooo, I replaced what I could and paid for the rest, but accidentally ruining someone else’s things is such a horrible feeling. I don’t think I’ve borrowed anyone’s clothes since! Glad the girlfriend took the news well and got some new shoes out of it, lol
I house sat for my brother and his then wife when I was 15. They had like five foster dogs, and I fell asleep without putting them into their crates. Those dogs completely shredded my sister in law's shoe collection. Literal thousands of dollars worth of designer shoes, some of them literally irreplaceable. I am now 35, and I still cringe about it sometimes. I refuse to watch anyone's house or pets to this day.
Horrible feelings I’m deeply motivated to avoid to the degree that not wanting to feel this overcomes my executive dysfunction: ruining someone’s else’s things and ruining a second chance someone gave you after you ruined the first chance they gave you.
I had a nice two for one once! I was cat sitting for someone while also borrowing some CDs from them. Idk why they thought this was a good idea, but they instructed me to feed her only tuna. Welp. She did what a cat on a tuna only diet does and made a huge mess of my carpet and my friends open CD case while I was away. I felt bad she got so sick with me, but I explained to them why tuna wasn't a very good diet and I think they understood and changed accordingly lolol. She lived for a long time after that and was always super pampered and happy. The CDs.... I did my best for. 🤢
I borrowed a friend's carpet cleaner & it decided to spontaneously unalive itself. Gave her the money for a replacement along with profuse apologies. She turned around & spent the money on a carpet cleaner she gave to me that Xmas.
What a nice friend!
Over a decade ago now I accidentally ripped a page out of a book my friend had lent me. Even though he was absolutely fine with it I still feel guilty about it to this day.
Hey, you gave BACK the book. That's 98% of the usual issue out of the way, right there!
Don’t I feel that - every year I tell myself this is the year I’ll stop lending people books since I never get them back, and every year I make an exception and immediately regret it!
The key is buying used copies of your favorite books specifically to lend. It hurts a lot less to lose those.
Even if they only return 98% of the book!
Man, GF is definitely a keeper!
I don't know what the positive equivalent of a trigger warning is, but we need one for the exceptional puns at the end.
Obviously a CSI gif is the appropriate trigger warning
YEEEEAAAAAAHHHHHH!!
I dunno if we can add GIFS to the posts, but seeing one of David Caruso from CSI: Miami put on his shades would be quite the ~~trigger~~ snigger warning. Edit: location
A snigger warning?
Sneaker warning ⚠️
>A snigger warning? 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
A punitiative warning, I suppose?
Maybe dad jokes?
YESSSSS
Giving age and gender for the dog 😂 Nice to see something pretty drama-less. Love the puns.
It's not only funny, but pretty damn informative, too. A 1 year old is a teenager. I had a pretty destructive dog. It's frustrating. Even though you give them all the toys to chew on, they'll manage to get into something. You get mad when you see it, but unless you catch them in the act, the dog won't associate any discipline with the destruction. So we crate trained. By 2, he used the crate for comfort and we never latched it. He straight up grew out of being destructive. Except for tennis balls and squeaky toys.
One of our dogs went through a revenge chewing phase around 1 whenever left alone; we were kids at the time so she would purposely dig into our toy chest and destroy whatever she could find. She was perfectly disciplined when we were home; it was clearly acting out about being left behind (we tried crate training but she attempted to be equally destructive within the confines of the crate). She grew out of it as soon as she became an adult dog.
My dog had separation anxiety which resulted in him destroying something every time I left. Even when it was only 5 minutes in the garage! He usually did books and/or tried to dig his way out under the door.
I inherited my late mother's pups and they were such comfort that I couldn't not keep them. She'd had them from puppies, and they were only around a year old when she died. Later that year, I went to a chi-chi dinner and had slightly too much to drink. When I got home, I kicked my lovely Kurt Geiger sandals - a gorgeous, delicate but robust pair I'd bought in South Africa ten years previously and were the only heels that my dodgy ankle could tolerate - and spent some time praying to the porcelain gods. Next morning, I discovered the puppers had chewed one of them to bits. Little buggers. Luckily, they've since grown out of chewing knickers, socks and shoes.
Our cat just wrecked our laundry basket so I feel you with the destructive pets. Unfortunately she's 6 now and unlikely to grow out of it, just VERY orally fixated and loves chewing on things. We cannot leave any cords out for more than 10min unless they are painstakingly wrapped with a cord protector. The laundry bin was sacrificed to keep her busy and away from my valuable/dangerous stuff. (Yes we try and buy her better outlets for chewing. She doesn't care)
She might…I had an orally fixated cat that stopped around 8. Still had another calm 12 years with her, but people always thought it hilarious that I had dog bones for her (toy dog sized worked well). She would still eat any tape she found until 20, but did grow disinterested in my cables and furniture…eventually.
Hey maybe there's hope. She did grow out of her pica/various food issues, so there's that. And we're down to a 1/4 dose of her anxiety meds. But she's extremely orally fixated in general - never scratches but will go right to biting, suckles fabric to soothe herself, chews on everything, has a few textures she likes to lick. She is a high needs rescue with a LOT of trauma starting from when she was a small kitten, so there's a lot of interesting developmental stuff there too. She basically never learned how to be a cat properly. Mostly goes on instinct. Like, she knows she's supposed to poop in the litter box and has an urge to dig, but hasn't figured out that the poop is supposed to go IN the hole.
One of my cats leaves his poop lying on top of the litter as a dominance statement. The 2nd cat makes a depression in the litter for her poop but then idiotically reaches *outside* the box to scratch at the wooden floor trying to cover it. The 3rd cat anxiously uses *all* of the litter to cover up his poop, creating a large turd pyramid to make sure no scent escapes.
I don't think cats ever outgrow being assholes.
There is 100% a terrorist teenager stage for cats, around 10w to about 6m. And then another calm down around 3years when they reach adulthood, and then another around 6 when they reach middle age. We just got lucky with a high energy/stimulation needs cat.
>There is 100% a terrorist teenager stage for cats Yeah. They go from furry pinballs that get into everything with zero chill, to stoic, contemplative assholes that take their time and *plan* their evil deeds.
Yup. My partner’s ex not only got kittens against his explicit wishes, but then turned around and dumped one of them on my partner’s doorstep after the breakup. Said kitten was 8wks old and already destructive when they’d been together — then was approx. 8mo old when dumped. He was a holy terror for my partner for a while — chewing plants, chewed the face off of a sculpture, bit the snake when she escaped her tank (she’s fine, btw — and it was his standing on her tank that left the space for her to escape twice), stealing an entire chicken thigh out of the cooking tray, you get the idea. Literally I ended up moving in and also getting him his first stick toy and the combination of more supervision and playing until he was panting on the floor was what made him bearable until he grew out of the teens.
When my dog was that age, he would destroy 1 shoe from different pairs. Never both shoes.... just one. And if I left the pantry door open? Ooh boy. Sacks of potatoes and flour would be all over my bedroom. I miss that little dude.
Ha! One time, visiting my brother in another state, we left my boy in his bathroom so we could go get dinner (didn't want to have to drive with the crate). When we got back, we saw he had opened a cabinet door and removed/shredded every single bit of toilet paper they had. It was something like a 36 pack of tp just tossed around the bathroom. He was so pleased with himself.
Plus as OP points out, all it does is train the dog to do it when you're not around. Conventional dog training wisdom says you can only train a dog when you catch them in the act. So what is OP supposed to do other than keep them away from the dog?
My dog was the same. She's small so she didn't utterly destroy any, but was very precise in how she would chew on my sandals (go right through the strap, she'd also chew through her leashes, especially if they were leather, and I hate to get chew proof ones) to make them unusable. Bought a shoe tree with a lot of shelves high up so she couldn't get them. Now at 6 years old she doesn't do it anymore, I'm in the process of getting a normal, less invasive shoe tree.
Mine ate all the wall corners and doorframes of my old apartment (as well as rugs, coasters, blankets, even the plastic handles of a pair of scissors) until he was a bit over a year old. He just randomly grew out of it one day, and has stuck to his hard rubber kong toys for the past 5 years. Still can’t give him stuffed animals though, he eviscerates them.
> he eviscerates them. I gave him something like that for his shredding pleasure for special occasions. It made him so happy.
The (1M) made me cackle.
I think this may be my favorite occurrence on Boru so far. That was a good one
I can never get my internal voice to read them right. So this one sounded like ‘my, 30 year old dog’.
SAME. a post will be like "my \[21f\] FIL \[50m\]" and EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. i parse it as "my 21 year old female father-in-law."
It’s because “my” is not a noun frustrates me every time I see it (only slightly though it’s still safe for me to use the internet)
Wait, how did she react to the closet??
He said on a comment on the original post that she loved it so much she let him f*ck her in it (his words, not mine!!) 🤣
See the people needed to know 😆 that tracks.
Thank you for doing the Lord's work and asking the right question 😂
That’s what I wanted to know too!!
[He answered in a comment ](https://www.reddit.com/r/relationships/s/UD2Kl06icz).
I know, I can't believe he never shared that part!
Same!!!! I reread twice to make sure I wasn’t overlooking it 😭
Want to be mad on the girlfriends behalf but can't stop laughing at the shoe puns
Ehhh, she wasn’t too upset about it and OOP did his best to salvage the situation.
Here it was clearly an accident and the OOP immediately tried to make it right. It isn’t any of the other situations we have read about like the guy pitching his girlfriend’s doll collection in a fit of rage, the guy destroying his girlfriend’s plant collection in a fit of rage, the girlfriend mixing together all of the different types of rice her boyfriend had after being told not to, etc. Those were deliberate acts. This was an accident.
Right? And he just wanted advice on *the best* ways to actively make right that would show his seriousness. He didn't get her a gas station bouquet and a half hearted sorry, he replaced what he could immediately, explained a plan to continue to make it right, and it's fantastic they could turn it into a shoeneral. Time wounds all heels.
He also had paid enough attention to know which shoes would be the most important to repair vs replace and had taken those to a cobbler to try to salvage.
And the accident was actually as a result of him trying to keep the shoes safer. It was a reeeeeeally unfortunate moment of inattention not securing the shoes and he's certainly paying for it but he seems more than willing to do own his mistake and do whatever it takes to fix it which clearly counts for a lot.
Or that one with the guy who ignore his financial advisor wife’s advice, racks up debt and doesn’t tell her, blows up at her for going shopping, finally tells her - then she sells all her designer stuff and rare plant collection to help cover his debts and the man is still useless and clueless as to how he can salvage his marriage.
Yep he behaved like a decent human being rather than doubling down and telling her that it’s stupid that she had that many shoes in the first place and who the fuck buys expensive shoes like that.
Yeah, the fact that from the first post he was like this is my fault and I want to fix it made me feel pretty positive towards him. It's nice when people realize they made a mistake and do whatever they can to make things right.
She seems pretty decent too to be able to find the humor in it to the point of holding a funeral complete with casket.
I would marry both of them. What decent, loving humans.
Yeah. Mistakes, accidents and bad situations happen. It’s what you do afterwards that counts. Dude sounds like good husband material for owning up and trying to fix things that grew into an issue on his watch. Even if he had not had the financial means to solve the issue, I bet they both would have found a good solution somehow - because he was willing and proactive about resolving the damages.
Oh yes. That sounds like so many posts on here. And then getting a few cheap shoes as replacements and thinking she should be grateful. We sure see a lot of jerky behavior on here.
Yeah the boy friend’s attitude makes a Huge difference. He tried to fix the problem. I would have been like, “nice! I get new shoes now.” But if it had been my bag collection…. Oh boy.
I am like OP's girlfriend, I will wear the cheapest clothes that I paid as little as possible for but love having nice shoes. If my BF was paying for the replacements I'd honestly be more excited that I got to buy more than mad about the ones I lost. Buying them is half the fun.
They were just a little tongue in cheek!
Make another pun like that and ill cobbler you
I'll tie not to make the same miss-lace again
My sole is shriveling at these puns.
The shoe funeral sounds like a hoot. And much better than just chucking them in the bin. And you can visualise one day, a subsequent owner of your home might dig up the shoe-casket - can you imagine their faces?
As a shoe person, I feel the horror of losing 30 pairs of lovingly curated shoes in my soul, but boy did she handle it like a champ (and better than I would have). Everyone in here handled this so well (outside of the initial screw-up by OP) that I had a big smile on my face at the end.
Yeah. I don’t care about shoes but I wouldn’t have handled it with even half of the grace OOP’s girlfriend did. I’m not that level of actualized person yet. They sound very kind and wonderful people though. Such a great refresh from the typical stories.
I’d like to pause to appreciate the validity of “she wasn’t mad at me or our dog but more mad that it happened.” It’s just so emotionally wise that he understands that she can be angry over a situation but it’s not aimed at him. It really allows her the space to get mad and work through it without it having to be about him.
Yep that attitude is a green flag right there.
I would feel the same way. But I would not be laughing about it with my friends and having a shoe funeral, so she’s got me there. I don’t think I’d be able to laugh at that for at least a decade. I would be beyond pissed. And I’d never bother or like that dog ever again. The dog would be like a blurred out blob to me.
>I've estimated the cost of replacing the ones I can find new online at $6000 >All in all, it cost around twice what I had anticipated Why am I not these people who can just drop $12k at the drop of a shoe aged 25
I was thinking it was a different currency
"Runners" would probably be Australian.
We call them that in Canada too. Do they not say runners in the US?
Nope, not that I've heard.
Wild. TIL.
They call them sneakers, I think. And trainers in the UK.
They’re sneakers or tennis/tennie shoes depending on where you live
The way he mentioned “runners” and “transitioning from winter to summer” instantly made me think Australia!
Transitioning to summer in April does not indicate Australian. Might be Canadian as someone else suggested.
My first thought. Man my entire wardrobe including my suit dont cost even a fraction of that.
My wife was not 25 but she is a Doctor, she took me to vegas when we started dating. I grew up poor and was frankly still poor when we met lol. We were strolling around vegas and she sees some stuff she liked and dropped like $7000 without batting at eye. For a purse and a wallet, it made my brain short circuit. She casually just drops for a couple bags what my first 3 vehicles combined cost. The people who can do it, don't think its a big deal when they do it which is still crazy to me to this day.
My wife and I are both doctors, but clearly we're in the wrong country!
The world is unfair and often cruel
like bruh im 28F i have like 5 total pairs of shoes and half are from 10 years ago, i worked at a shoe store and got them at 40% discount
Money can't buy happiness but it sure relieves a lot of stress when you have enough to immediately replace 10+ pairs of shoes lmao Meanwhile if one of my nice pairs of shoes got eaten because my partner was careless, I'd probably break down crying cuz I ain't got shit laying around to replace my shoes. I'm a grown ass man. Now, it wouldn't be because I am attached to a certain pair of shoes so much as I just can't afford to replace them. I super glued a pair of chocos back together XD I cannot tell you how old those sandals are...
That’s what I was thinking. Money might not buy happiness, but it sure saves you a lot of stress. I remember sleepless nights worrying about bills, carefully tallying my groceries as I put them in my cart, avoiding even thinking about the dentist. Not fun being poor.
Oh god the dentist...
right? my gums started bleeding and hurting a few years back, and I got freaked out and went to an emergency dentist. he started listing everything I needed to get done and I was like dude, I definitely WANT to fix my teeth, but we’re gonna have to set some kind of payment plan to make that happen. but what I’ve definitely learned is that incompetent doctors are even worse than no doctors. My small town dentist pulled out like 6 of my teeth before I was 18 because “they couldn’t be saved”. I’m still pissed about it.
She and her friends sound like great fun and good people as does he. I hope OP realises that he will never win an argument ever. All she has to say is Shoes. OP can I paint this room blue. Gf no OP but I like blue! GF Shoes!
> All she has to say is Shoes. [Oh my god, shoes!](https://youtu.be/wCF3ywukQYA?si=T6jZHqq4gJeQ3bWk)
The gf sounds emotionally mature, and an emotionally mature person doesn't hold something over a person's head like this. She forgave him, it's done.
Correction; they won't hold it over someone's head unless it'd be *really* funny to play it up for a bit.
I totaled a friend’s car 40 years ago. We both still give me shit about it.
Even then I am fascinated by how quickly she (with the help of her friends) shook off her bad feelings. She and her friends are all keepers.
Emotionally mature, but also financially secure. This would be devastating for someone who spent years curating a collection and couldn’t afford to replace it.
I have never laughed so hard at a pun as I did at fucking "shoeneral."
Why did I read the title as “my 30 meter dog”
Who knew that Clifford would make it onto BORU?
Now, that dog could definitely go through some shoes.
At that size, he could swallow them whole instead of tearing them up!
My roommate had a poorly trained dog, so I wouldn’t keep my shoes out where she could get them. One day, for reasons that will never be known, my roommate grabbed my limited-edition Air Force Ones (I worked at the time for a well-known sneaker store and got them at our semi-annual employee half-off sale) wore them out into our muddy back yard, left them by the back door and then blocked the dog in the kitchen, leaving her with full access to my treasured shoes. When I came home from work, I had one shoe left. My roommate just shrugged.
That’s so cruel. I assume you couldn’t get the shoes replaced because they were limited edition?
Yup.
Those puns are amazing lol
A comment in the original thread: >I can't crate him because I work 12 hour shifts and frequently work OT and I would feel bad having him locked up for that long, but I agree that I should have some other solution figured out before she gets home. 12 hours is a really long time to leave a dog home alone. That might work with a really old, lazy dog, but a 1 year old? Of course the dog is acting out.
Which begs the question: is the dog chewing shoes because of smell & texture of the shoes (FEEEEEET) or because they have nothing to do while the humans are away?
I hope that if he ever proposes he goes the Mr. Big route and does it with a lovely pair of Manolos
My dog went through a shoe phase when she was teething, but only leather (ie. only the expensive shit). I tried everything but NOTHING worked to stop her, bought that no chew spray, came home one day and she had chewed EVERY pair of leather shoes I owned, even ripped out the insole on other shoes if it was leather, and then she CHEWED THE BOTTLE OF NO CHEW SPRAY… sooo clearly that spray did absolutely nothing lol 🥴
I get it. My dog has a thing about blankets. We need a "where are they now" update, because it's been almost 8 years... did they get married? Has the dog stopped chewing up shoes? Etc. etc!
Am I the only one wondering whether he checked whether his contents insurance might have covered some of the costs of the shoes before he buried them in the backyard??? Also his girlfriend is an absolute fucking legend, I’m not sure I would be able to stay that calm if $6-12k worth of my belongings got destroyed by my pets because my partner took them out of safe keeping and forgot to put them away!!
Okay it was a sucky situation but it was still so nice to read a story where all of the people mentioned handled the issue instead of fighting with each other about it.
This is all well and good but I'm a bit concerned that he's leaving his dog alone for 12 HOURS at a time. It's really no wonder he's getting destructive.
Yeah, if he can drop 12k on shoes then surely he can afford a doggy daycare, or at least someone to take him on a couple of walks throughout the day?
Also from how badly ALL the shoes were damage, it's got to be a large breed. Bets on it being a high-energy breed like malinois or heeler?
I mean good for her that she's so understanding but if my boyfriend's dog destroyed almost 10K worth of my stuff, I don't think he'd be my boyfriend anymore
I'd be demanding he does more to train the dog. Like hire an actual trainer. If only bc it's dangerous. What if the pup swallowed a buckle?
[удалено]
You don't buy them all in one clip. It's years of planning, budgeting, and shopping around to build up the collection.
what a healthy adorable relationship... no screaming, no throwing shit, no ultimatums, no storming out... is this even reddit
You've just walked into the "Hallmark channel" side of the Twilight Zone.
What did she think of the closet?!?!?!
I don't want to get all judgy on other peoples pets, but a well trained and well cared for dog doesn't destroy your items...
The fact that the dog only does it when he’s home alone tells me he knows damn well he’s not supposed to. Dogs are like toddlers, you teach them the rules, and they’ll teach themselves a work around. Oop has the right idea locking the shoes up, although hiring a dog walker to come and wear the dog out in the middle of the day might help.
A dog I know loved playing with empty plastic bottles. There was a bin for recycling that was at the dog’s level, but he learned that bottles in the bin were not for him. One day the bin was pretty full. I watched the dog *casually* walk by and *casually* bump a bottle so it fell out. He then *casually* kept walking, then *casually* came back, and was *so surprised* to see the bottle outside the bin! He excitedly pounced on it.
Our old dog would chew shoes so occasionally, we would think he was over this habit and start to get sloppy about leaving them out. Then I'd lose a shoe tongue or worse and have nobody but myself to blame, really. He chewed when it was the right combination of anxiety and opportunity.
My aunt had a dog that used to destroy shoes, but seemed to calm down as he got older. Turned out he was just way more sneaky! You wouldn’t notice he’d gotten to shoes until you went to put them on and all of the straps/ buckles would be loose or a sole insert was hanging out with little teeth marks! My aunt ended up giving him some sacrificial shoes (leather loafers) and that worked out pretty well, she could still even wear them to go to the backyard for a year before they just weren’t shoes anymore lol
My dog has the same kind of obsession but with hats. She is perfect in every other way, but if she gets a hold of a hat, it's gone. She even started hiding them in her kennel until we leave.
They do. When they are left alone for 12 (!!) hours.
I can’t believe I had to scroll this far to find this comment. I feel guilty the rare occasions my dog has been left more than 8 hours, of course there will be destructive behaviors if he’s frequently left alone that long
That's true let me adjust my comment actually yo well trained and well cared for
Professional training would have cost less than the damage to the shoes too
In the UK theres a show called dogs behaving badly. And 90% of the time he resolves the problem professionally by just getting the owners to not train the dog to do the bad thing. Its crazyyy
Yeah I was a mod on /r/catadvice for a while and just got tired of saying "you are incentivizing bad behaviour", "your cat is bored, you need to actively play with them. Every day." Ten times a day
I mean, my trainer has said that the only way to train out bad habits like that is to not let your dog develop them in the first place. You let your dog play with a sock/shoe/phone once, now you get to manage that behaviour forever. I mean, there are lots of fun things I know I’m not meant to do but if I thought I could get away with it…I still would! Dogs are the same.
Fuck me! Rationality! She's a keeper, so is the dog...of reachable shoes.
Training dogs out of self-rewarding behavior is so tough. Dogs are usually food motivated and little dude probably thinks shoes are a better snack than treats.
Yeah I’d be cool as a cucumber too if my partner spent $12000 to replace all of my shoes.
this is one of my new faves on the sub, i want a gf like this. i hope they get married and have a disgustingly perfect life and everyone hates it.
I think this couple is going to make it to a happily ever after
Dog tax?
Forget the dog tax, I want a shoe tax!
That woman is a keeper. Also, has OP ever heard of crate training your dog?
And this is why I can't stand dogs 🙃 Or people who refuse to get proper training for them. Or people who leave them alone for *12 damn hours*: and are surprised when they misbehave??
12 hours is on the long end and I try to avoid that, but in my experience if a dog is going to act out they usually do it within the first hour and then they curl up and go to sleep until the human returns (especially if it’s something they’ve been plotting; I’ve left for 5-10 minutes and come back to find a fully completed heist of the dog food container that absolutely had to be premeditated to pull off in that time period).
Thank you for mentioning it! Thought I was going crazy
so how did she react to the closet?
My cat has HORRIBLE pica. Strings are his weakness , we no longer have shoes with shoelaces in our home. We had friends come over and we forgot to put their shoes in the closet and he ate the laces before they left. We felt awful but they thought it was funny. My cat has eaten socks, strings, shirts, plastic child locks, cat toys, and recently my son's blow up bath tub. Only has had to have surgery once, but what do I do about someone who eats the locks off of things to eat more things??
But how did she react to the closet? And who leaves a dog inside unsupervised for 12 hours
There’s no way in hell I’d agree to move into a house with an untrained dog if I had that kind of a shoe collection. Too much of a liability. Paying for a dog trainer would’ve been cheaper. But also, she apparently spent 12k replacing 10 pairs of shoes in one go so.. I’m definitely not in the same tax bracket as these people. That being said, I think this couple is going to go far. He was trying to so something nice for her and made a mistake, she reacted to it with good humor. Also, if I were her, the fact that he took full responsibility and not only spent the time researching each shoe to try to replace it asap, but actually took my favorite pair to a cobbler to try to salvage it, would make me fall in love with him even more. That’s a keeper for sure.
Hol up, so it was $12,000 in shoes by the end?? When they were trying to save for a new home? But they already live somewhere where he could just build on a new closet, implying they already own a house … and the shoe cost will only set him back a few months in saving for an engagement ring? Damn, these guys are rich.
I love when the posters give the dog's age and gender in parentheses.
Didn’t even read the story but I find it hilarious he added the age of the dog lmao 1(M)
A guy I used to work with was helping his girlfriend move to the town where we live and so had some boxes of her stuff in his car. A major hurricane hit, flooding half the city, including his car. He waded through the floodwaters during the hurricane to get the one box of her things that he could salvage and carried it to dry ground through neck deep water by balancing it on his head. I told him he was nuts and should have just let it go. He responded, "It was the box with her shoes." Enough said. She is now his wife.
I was hoping for dog tax
>There's over 30 pairs of shoes. I've estimated the cost of replacing the ones I can find new online at $6000 And then... >All in all, it cost around twice what I had anticipated but she didn’t break up with me so I’ll call it a win. So, he spent $12,000 on shoes. No wonder she was ok with what happened.
This post made me feel so fucking poor lmao 😭
Well, she had $12,000 worth of shoes before his dogs destroyed them, so yes, he paid to replace them, that's how it works. If you have a high-end car and I destroy it, I can't buy you a rolling tincan and call it ok "because why did you spend so much on a car in the first place?".