Looking back, I’m worried my parents were unfit, near neglectful dog owners. They loved all of our dogs to bits, but my dad is very much under the view that everyone today is too sensitive and what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, etc, and my mother is generally weak willed in response to this. My parents have owned three dogs in their life. The first two were Rhodesian ridgebacks, the current one is an entlebucher mountain dog. The first Rhodesian ridgeback died of natural causes when I was young, probably five, so I don’t remember much about how they treated her. But the next dog I remember better, though still not great. This dog I was very close with and loved very much. He was a strong, lean Rhodesian ridgeback that didn’t like to play with toys and didn’t roll over, he was very regal. In terms of treatment, my parents did a lot of classic not good pet owner things. My parents likely walked him way less than they were supposed to, probably like once a week when it was warm out and never in the winter. We have a medium size backyard for him so I imagine they thought it wasn’t as necessary. Also, my father has always insisted on use of a shocker collar and punishment rather than positive reward. But, some of their treatment is possibly neglectful. So, every day growing up the dog would be put in his large cage on our plastic-screened porch when us kids were at school. And since most of my siblings had after school programs, that means the dog would be in the cage for up to 11 hours. Now normally, most days of the week, my father would come home for lunch and let the dog out to pee and come inside, but of course not always. Some days the dog would be locked up for 11 hours, and to make matters worse, and even more dangerous, we live in an area that can have extreme weather. Typically every year our area will have a coldest temperature of in the negatives and highest temperature of over 100 degrees. Normally in the summer the kids would be home so the dog can stay inside, but the winter is when this became really dangerous. My dad believes our porch is somewhat insulated and gives off warmth from our house, which he keeps in the mid 60s in the winter. While it is slightly insulated, i have still seen our dogs water bowl fully freeze in the winter. And this poor thin furred Rhodesian Ridgeback was staying out there for possibly up to 11 hours when he was a senior dog. My mother felt bad and used to occasionally put a blanket or space heater out next to his cage, but it was never consistent. And I have a memory of coming home and letting him out, to find him shivering from the cold. When he hit about 9-10, he started getting skinnier (you could see all his ribs) and sicker with what we found out was cancer. He passed when I was at the end of middle school, when he was 10. My parents of course were kinder to him when he was sick but i still think they still kept him outside when we weren’t home. It was becoming less common me and my older siblings were older now, and wouldn’t have as many after school programs, but I’m sure there were still a couple days when he would be outside in the cold for maybe up to 11 hours. They love our dogs, but they didn’t put in the work to be good dog parents, and they made a lot of assumptions about what is and isn’t okay. Most of that dogs life was spent locked up in a cage practically at the mercy of the elements, I’m sure he was bored out of his mind and thinking about it makes me tear up because I love him so much and he was SUCH a fantastic dog. Now, our newest dog is turning 7 years, though you wouldn’t know it. He is a short and incredibly muscular entlebucher. I don’t remember completely how we treated him pre-Covid, but i know it was similar to our last dog. The difference was now the children of the family were older, high school. We would play with him more because he was more classically “dog like”, he liked toys and fetch and rolled over. My father still used the shocker collar, and to prevent tugging we (me included) would use a prong collar, something looking back was very cruel, and I can’t believe I didn’t see at the time (i used it probably within the last 5 months before I really sat down to think about it). While I don’t ever remember him cold/ shivering, he likely was put in the cage similarly to our last dog in the cold for up to 11 hours. And, he is put in his smaller inside cage to sleep every night, where all of our previous dogs slept in my parents room. And what makes him noticeably distressed is the heat. I don’t remember coming home to him panting back when I was in high school, but I do remember in the mid summertime thoughtlessly going on walks with him midday in 90+ degree weather, to the point were he would pull off to the side and sit down, something he’s never done in cooler weather. Looking back, the asphalt and general heat made this incredibly irresponsible and dangerous. Since the start of Covid he has spent pretty much every day out of his cage being fawned over and played with, however, my family still hasn’t changed. When it was 95+ degrees out and we had people coming over, I thoughtlessly put the dog in his cage outside for what would’ve been 4 hours, something I told my mother about and she was seemingly fine with. 30 minutes in my sister noticed this and told me it was dangerously hot, which I then let him inside. He was panting but recovered and cooled down. This has brought to my attention that the way my family treats our animals is different and a lot worse than others. And that makes me worried for our current dog. I brought this up to my father, but he is a very emotionally abusive man and made some comment about me going to live somewhere else and being cruel to him by saying this. My mother told me I probably shouldn’t bring it up because it is just going to make him dig his feet in. But he won’t even admit that keeping our last senior Rhodesian ridgeback in a cage in freezing temperatures was bad! He said I was making up the dog shivering and making up other things. And, while about 9 months ago I had a mental health crisis due to my morality OCD, my family blamed it all on my mental illness. I don’t know what to do. Is my current dog in danger? Is it my OCD? What would you do in this situation?
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from Pets https://www.reddit.com/r/Pets/comments/p67qy6/tw_possible_neglect_long_post_im_worried_my/
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