Wedding Woes

Classic: "Dead" dog parenting fail

When my oldest son was 8, we decided to get a dog. I’ve raised dogs before so I had a fairly good idea of what I was getting myself into, until I realized our new dog was the devil’s spawn in furry disguise. I won’t get into all the trouble he caused. We made a difficult decision to send him back to his previous owner, but my son was adamantly against it. He went on a hunger strike and refused to speak to anyone, including at school. (He inherits the drama-queen gene from both his parents.) So one day we sent him to his grandparents under the guise of a happy weekend outing, and secretly took the dog back. After our son came home we lied and said the dog died. To make it believable we pretended to have buried the dog in the backyard. My son is now 13 and he still goes to the “grave” to mark every anniversary of the “death,” which in itself is impressive because he doesn’t even remember his own birthday. Anyway, the problem is, we are now moving. My son has been increasingly worried about leaving Scooter behind and has been asking us to exhume his body to rebury him in our new house. He is insisting that he be there to witness the “ceremony” of exhuming and reburying as he feels he never got a proper chance to say goodbye at the original “funeral.” Knowing our son, he would be devastated and perhaps scarred for life if we admit the truth. I know it was wrong to lie but we don’t want our son to lose trust in us forever because of what happened in the past. What should we do?


Re: Classic: "Dead" dog parenting fail

  • What a tangled web conflict avoidance doth weave
  • I've always thought I was very extreme about my dogs' ashes (I have 5 different dogs ashes) by saying they were all to be disposed of with my ashes when I die.  

    This doesn't seem particularly healthy though.  I think they need a therapist involved in this now to be able to handle it...whatever in the heck that might look like, b/c I have no idea.
  • This....isn’t right. The lies are one thing. But being unable to move on unless you see a decaying animal exhumed? This seems like a therapy issue. 


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  • I think at this point it would make things waaaay worse to tell the truth about the dog not being there.  I would tell the kid that exhuming bones or whatever isn't respectful to the deceased, have some sort of "goodbye" ceremony. Then move and take the kid to therapy if he's still talking about it incessantly to work through underlying issues (that I would guess are not really about the dog).  

    To be clear, I would never ever tell a lie like this and think it's abhorrent.  Sometimes you need to make decisions that kids don't agree with and they need to deal (with help if necessary). 
  • I can't really blame the parents for trying to cushion that blow. 

    But at this point I'd also be clear that you aren't digging up the dog either.  
  • Whole amount of wrong.

    I wish LW had mentioned what they had done to help with the dog. I was raised with cats in my family, but I can assure you my cats are pretty different than the ones I grew up with.

    Lying to the son was awful. LW should have been honest from the beginning about their thoughts on the dog and how the behavior was. 8yr olds understand more than you thing, and maybe could have been more reasonable?
    Did LW consider behavioral training? I wish I could ask more ..
  • My parents called my treated my anxiety the same way "I was just being a drama queen" (of course teasing me into emotional outbursts and mocking me for them was also a favorite past time).  Guess what, it has caused huge problems for me my entire life because instead of getting real treatment and actual healthy coping skills, I got, well, my fucked up ways of dealing with feelings.  Maybe the LW should actually help their son cope with his feelings instead of just laughing at him and calling him over dramatic.  
    All of this! 

    This is clearly a time to help the son deal with his emotions about the dog but also dismissing him as a drama queen isn’t helping anything. Yes, don’t dig up the dog but this is not a typical reaction so they need to help him regulate his emotions properly. 
  • Whole amount of wrong.

    I wish LW had mentioned what they had done to help with the dog. I was raised with cats in my family, but I can assure you my cats are pretty different than the ones I grew up with.

    Lying to the son was awful. LW should have been honest from the beginning about their thoughts on the dog and how the behavior was. 8yr olds understand more than you thing, and maybe could have been more reasonable?
    Did LW consider behavioral training? I wish I could ask more ..
    I'm sympathetic to the parents here.   If they felt like the kid was not going to grasp reality at 8 it's not that they weren't going to understand it's that the 8 yo already felt like the parents were doing something horrible to him.   I've heard the horror stories of dogs.   Some are just find and some really are just terrible.   It can happen even within a litter.   But not all 8 yos "get it".   And as a parent who now has a 9 yo to one who is parenting a toddler I can tell you the are some things that are just hard for a kid to get.   We had REPEATED issues with Chiquita last year over the same topics.     When her emotions were high there was (and still can be) ZERO reasoning with her.  

    I don't think the parents made the wrong decision of telling the kiddo that the dog had died at the time.   They opted to do what was going to minimize the reaction and felt they were going in the best interest of the child.  

    But they KEPT with it for years.  At some point it was going to be time to tell the kiddo, "Last year when we told you that Fido had died we actually made the really hard decision to move him to another home because we felt that our home wasn't safe."  Most likely it would have been an argument but the odd charade wouldn't continue.

    But now they've played into that game - and they have themselves to blame for it. 
  • I also think children don't get to call the shots. However, I can see why the parents did this but agree with @banana468 they should have come clean at some point. Reminds me of a house search show I saw recently where the parent was nixing houses they liked because of what the children wanted. Sorry not sorry but kids don't get to make those kind of decisions. Paint color in their room? Fine. Style of house and if it is old or new? NOPE!
    Right.   The kid doesn't get to dictate the terms.

    And in this case the kid didn't.   So the parents opted to try to cushion the blow with the lie.

    Depending on the situation I don't think I'd turn that option down IF I didn't think it would spiral.   The parents didn't think this one through and they also didn't help AT ALL with the kiddo marking the occasion every year.  


  • Would there be anything left after 5 years?  I thought burying an animal in the ground (without putting it in a box or anything) would make it decompose pretty fast.  And then all you've got it is a bunch of bones ... I get why it might be hard to leave behind the grave of a beloved pet, but this is just life and this is what happens.  You leave behind lots of things when you move!  
    I'm curious as to how long they had this dog.  Did the child get attached really fast?  If they only had it for a couple weeks and this is his reaction, I'm a touch concerned.  

  • banana468 said:
    Whole amount of wrong.

    I wish LW had mentioned what they had done to help with the dog. I was raised with cats in my family, but I can assure you my cats are pretty different than the ones I grew up with.

    Lying to the son was awful. LW should have been honest from the beginning about their thoughts on the dog and how the behavior was. 8yr olds understand more than you thing, and maybe could have been more reasonable?
    Did LW consider behavioral training? I wish I could ask more ..
    I'm sympathetic to the parents here.   If they felt like the kid was not going to grasp reality at 8 it's not that they weren't going to understand it's that the 8 yo already felt like the parents were doing something horrible to him.   I've heard the horror stories of dogs.   Some are just find and some really are just terrible.   It can happen even within a litter.   But not all 8 yos "get it".   And as a parent who now has a 9 yo to one who is parenting a toddler I can tell you the are some things that are just hard for a kid to get.   We had REPEATED issues with Chiquita last year over the same topics.     When her emotions were high there was (and still can be) ZERO reasoning with her.  

    I don't think the parents made the wrong decision of telling the kiddo that the dog had died at the time.   They opted to do what was going to minimize the reaction and felt they were going in the best interest of the child.  

    But they KEPT with it for years.  At some point it was going to be time to tell the kiddo, "Last year when we told you that Fido had died we actually made the really hard decision to move him to another home because we felt that our home wasn't safe."  Most likely it would have been an argument but the odd charade wouldn't continue.

    But now they've played into that game - and they have themselves to blame for it. 
    Valid. And it likely depends on the kid too 

    Me at 8? Wouldn't be happy but would likely understand. {i understood more at a young age than I should have, but it wasn't for any particular reason}

    M at 8? Given his situation at the time, likely not.

    BK? Who knows.
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