Hello, I've been feeling very down as of late due to seeing the conditions in which my dog lives, so I'm going to elaborate on me and my dog's story.
I'm a young adult from Norway, on my way to start at Uni autumn later this year. When I was about eleven years old my parents got us a dog; a lovely black and white mixed flatcoated retriever and border collie. Everyone loved him, played with him, went on walks with him. We already had a cat, with whom my dog became great friends. We lived a little on the outskirts - far away from the closest villages - so we could take him unleashed with us into the forest; he could run and play tug-of-war with bushes to his heart's content. We also lived close to a little beach, which meant we could take him with us so he could swim there during the warm summer months.
Speed forwards a couple of years: videregående skole - the Norwegian equivalent of high school / upper secondary - has started. I'm still living with my parents in my home municipality. Well, parent - to be more exact; my parents had recently gotten a divorce, meaning my father moved out of the house. This is the start of the worsening of my dog's living conditions. For, while we were four people in the household, only I and my father had the ability to walk and play with our dog on a regular basis; my mother suffers from ME, and my sister is both a lot younger and weaker than me and she hangs with friends spread across our very large municipality, so she's away from home at sleepovers very often. So my mother often has days where she can barely get out of bed, and my dog is so strong that he could easily pull my sister into the ground he has different plans than her. In other words: I'm the only one who's consistantly able to walk and play with our dog.
Second year of videregående - our municipality only offers the first of three years, so I must find some other place to continue studying. After moving away I was only able to go home the occasional "long weekend" or break. My mother and sister still lived in the aforementioned house on the outskirts of civilisation. My mother made a great effort to walk my dog as often as she was able to, and my sister - when she had friends over - went on walks with my dog together. It was sad coming home seeing my dog just laying in a sofa or a chair most of the day when he wasn't outside just sitting there staring at the road passing our house. Later on our cat - by now a lazy old "gjellamons" - was found in our garage wheezing and clawing with his final breaths. He was euthanised and died the moment after the syringe was injected; he had presumably poisoned himself with antifreeze.
Third year of videregående - my final year before going to uni. My mother and father finally got our house sold; it was way to large and expensive to be justifiable for my mother and sister to live in by themselves. My mother and sister went on to move into a medium-sized flat in the municipal centre. I was still living away, and with this being the final year I have even less time than before for going home. Even though I've not been able to come hom very much, it warms my heart to see how happy he gets when he sees me walking off the bus with my suitcase in hand. But the next moment it breaks my heart seeing the conditions in which he lives: the flat is not particularily big, the outdoors area for my dog is very limited, and being unleashed outside is a foregone part of my dog's life. Walks and playing are short and far between, and my dog mostly spends his days the exact same way: sleeping on the sofa, sleeping under the table by the sofa, eating, and going outside for a little while walking back and forth. The only quality-of-life improvement my dog has gotten since moving to the flat, has been my sister getting a kitten, with whom my dog has become good friends - just like with our previous cat (<3). This kitten is very playful and active, so he and my dog run around in the flat chasing eachother.
My dog's always had very strong separation anxiety, but when we lived at our old home, he got used to us leaving and mostly scheduled times. Now that my father's gone from his life, I've moved away, and he lives in a new flat, my mother can't go anywhere as he will drool all over the flat and cry. We can't have anyone watching him, as he gets even more anxious at unfamiliar places. He's only been at one place throughout his life where he's been happy away from us - some dog farm in the neighbouring municipality. Not to be confused with this other dog farm in another neighbouring municipality he went to ONCE because he basically came home after his stay there depressed and half-dead looking, which probably made his separation anxiety even worse. At the good dog farm he was taken care of by a lovely family who took care of people's dogs when they wanted to go on vacation. There he got to socialise with many other dogs, they went on frequent walks in packs, and the kids of the family played with the dogs.
Right now I'm lying in bed, next to my dog, trying not to cry thinking about how boring and mundane my dog's life's become the last two-to-three years. I just want my dog to have a good and worthy life. It also makes me sad knowing how much my father loved - and still loves - my dog, probably never being able to see him again. I feel a need to vent and share, so I made this throwaway because I'm paranoid of my family finding this post, even though I know that no one of them uses reddit.
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from Pets https://www.reddit.com/r/Pets/comments/l7fbpq/bad_conditions_for_a_worthy_life_for_my_dog/
