Dear Prudence,
My sister-in-law’s dog, “Chester,” lives to chew or destroy things. She’s dedicated to Chester, and invests in training, enrichment, different types of toys, and tons of exercise for him, to the point that her routine with him drove off her last two boyfriends. Chester is good around kids, strangers, and other animals. But he’s a big pit mix so it’s not like he chews toys and the odd shoe—he gnawed through solid wood fencing in her backyard and ran loose in the neighborhood last year. But the final straw for her landlord was when he somehow scratched and bit his way through a locked undersink cabinet and proceeded to destroy the PVC piping. He says he’ll evict her if she doesn’t leave. I’m pretty sure he flagged her to other landlords in our area, because she makes decent money but no local rentals will take her with Chester in tow.
She asked about us as an option. My husband is pressing me to move her in until she finds something because we have a backyard and dogs of our own. We’ve had friends and relatives stay to get back on their feet before, but this is different. If Chester were a normal dog, I’d be OK with it. But he isn’t, and I don’t want to move her in when there’s no exit path for the two of them because no rentals exist that allow him. I don’t want her to be separated from her beloved dog, but I also don’t want to sacrifice my home for her to keep him. How do I work this out with my husband?