[Discussion] Under what circumstances would you willingly give away your dog?Dog Talks

Context: my wife and I drove from Los Angeles to Vancouver, BC two months ago with our wheaten terrier mix. Her parents had an empty basement unit that they offered to let us stay.

Turns out our boy LOVES this climate (not surprising considering his breed) and is thriving in a city where there are amazing hikes, walks and parks in literally every direction. My in-laws never had a pet and are absolutely smitten with him - he has bonded with them as well.

This is our dilemma: though Muppet loves us (we rescued him 4 years ago), we suspect he might be better off here. It makes me so, so sad to take him back to a city and a climate that he doesn’t enjoy nearly as much.

Reasons to leave him here:

• According to his fitness tracker, he happily walks over six miles a day right now. In LA he barely walked 1 before protesting. He is healthier and more active as my FIL wakes up early to walk him and takes him to the nature trail in the evening.

• He absolutely loves this cold weather, hates LA heat.

• the walks are just so much better (omg there are so many amazing OFF LEASH TRAILS).

• He is much less stressed here. Our LA neighborhood has a problem with fireworks year round and it freaks him out all summer

• My in-laws are retired so they can give him more attention then we can, as we work 8 hours a day

• Muppet brings my in-laws so much joy. My FIL is a stoic elderly Chinese man who never says much, but he laughs heartily at Muppet every day. My MIL dotes on him like crazy and talks to him while gardening.

reasons to take him back

• we’re his people and he would miss us. We would also miss him like crazy (but that’s somewhat selfish)

• he’s been surrendered twice already

• in-laws are too lenient and don’t correct bad behaviors (like lunging). Generally Muppet is very good, but he could regress

I know that the advice most people will give is that it’s my decision, but I’d really love to hear what other folks would do in this situation. I’m leaving in a few days and this has been weighing heavily on my mind.

Submitted October 29, 2020 at 07:15AM by ThrasherLA https://ift.tt/2TwKDRY