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I apologize that this is so long, but i really need your opinion on a family situation regarding boxers.
My sister got a male boxer about 1-1/2 years ago. He is very spunky and needed a friend, so she went to Petco and adopted a lab mix to be his friend. Then my sister started talking about getting a female to breed with her male. I advised her several times that it wasn't a good idea, that breeding wasn't going to be easy (her reply was always that they would wait and see if they still wanted to once the female got to the right age). I also told her that keeping them away from each other during heats until "that" time was going to be difficult too, about the lengths that the male and female will go to during that time to make it happen. My advice fell on deaf ears and she bought the female puppy anyway. The two young boxers and the lab started tearing up the back yard, which i told her was normal, they needed more activity and not to expect the grass to grow with them running around back there. Then the female went into her first heat. She brought the female into the house and left the male outside, and of course, he broke the window to get to her. Luckily nothing happened, but the broken window really made her mad. I baby-sat the male for the remainder of the heat and things calmed down. Then they started digging out of the back yard. My sister's husband would take all three of the dogs and put them into one crate (probably 3x4x3) as punishment and because he was too lazy to make the effort to secure the yard. My husband and i offered several times to fix the yard but were always told by her husband that he was going to take care of it. His way of takinig care of it was by throwing a lawn chair or some junk in the hole and expect it to work.
Over Thanksgiving, my brother in law and i both had the following friday off, so i offered to come over and help him work on it so that the job wouldn't feel so big (my sisters pregnant at this time so she's out of commission). He said that he was planning on working on the yard that day and didn't need my help.
Move on to mid december: my dogs are barking at the front window, and because i live on a fairly busy street, i didn't think anything of it. They just kept on barking, so i looked out, and there were all three of my sisters dogs in my front yard (we live in the same neighborhood, about 3 blocks away). It was 10:30 at night and i called her to tell her that we had her dogs. She sent her husband over to get them, and i asked him, probably sarcastically, how many more times he thougth he was going to get that lucky. The very next morning, my 12 year old niece came over on her way to school and told my husband that the boxers were gone and asked if he would go looking for them. He spent all day driving around searching for them, i came home from lunch and looked, and did the same when i got off of work. When i went back to my sisters house to see if they had come home, low and behold, there was her husband sitting on the couch watching TV and drinking a beer. Not worried about his dogs at all! That upset me pretty bad so i left quickly.
We had a family function that Saturday, so i stopped at the pound to see if hopefully they had been picked up by the dog catcher and i could bring them home. They weren't there and i left in tears.
The next day, i called my sister to see if she had found the dogs and if not had she put out any missing dog signs. It was 2:00 in the afternoon and she still hadn't put any out! It only stays daylight until 5:30 in December so time was running out for anybody to have a chance to see the sign that day. We got into an arguement about it and i told her that if she didn't care about them, that i would put the signs out with my phone number on them. She hung signs and got a call that night from a guy who's friend had picked them up. My sister didn't call me to tell me that they were found, and told the guy who had the dogs that he could keep them if he wanted. I found out a week later when my mom told me what was going on.
Then the next saturday, i got a call from my sister that the dogs had broken out the man's window and were running up and down the street and because she didn't take the signs down she got a call and went and picked them up. I offered to come and get them, but she said no, they were going to fix the yard and keep them. By this point, i'm almost begging for them to let me come and help, they obviously don't knwo what they're doing! She calls the next day and asks me to come over and help her while her husband was doing some Christmas shopping so i did. I went to Lowes and bought an electric fence and all of the supplies, went to her house and started fixing the yard alone. While i'm outside, he calls her and evidentally chewed her out for having me over working on the yard, so i left and took the dogs with me. She didn't seem to care at that point, but wouldn't speak to me at our family Christmas. We haven't spoken since.
She won't let my niece see me anymore because she thinks that i chose the dogs over her, but the way i see it, she chose to let this dog situation get in the way of our being sisters. I miss her, but am not going to apologize for nothing. Am I wrong for this?
Do any of you have any advice for me? I really don't know what to do.
By the way, the two boxers are doing great! I found them both good solid homes with people (friend's co-workers) that understand the breed and their personality traits. They had to be separated, but they went to two brothers that live down the street from each other and have and acre a piece and other dogs. Both are living in the house, have been spayed/neutered, and seem like they now have good lives, adn I can check on them whenever i want.
My sister got a male boxer about 1-1/2 years ago. He is very spunky and needed a friend, so she went to Petco and adopted a lab mix to be his friend. Then my sister started talking about getting a female to breed with her male. I advised her several times that it wasn't a good idea, that breeding wasn't going to be easy (her reply was always that they would wait and see if they still wanted to once the female got to the right age). I also told her that keeping them away from each other during heats until "that" time was going to be difficult too, about the lengths that the male and female will go to during that time to make it happen. My advice fell on deaf ears and she bought the female puppy anyway. The two young boxers and the lab started tearing up the back yard, which i told her was normal, they needed more activity and not to expect the grass to grow with them running around back there. Then the female went into her first heat. She brought the female into the house and left the male outside, and of course, he broke the window to get to her. Luckily nothing happened, but the broken window really made her mad. I baby-sat the male for the remainder of the heat and things calmed down. Then they started digging out of the back yard. My sister's husband would take all three of the dogs and put them into one crate (probably 3x4x3) as punishment and because he was too lazy to make the effort to secure the yard. My husband and i offered several times to fix the yard but were always told by her husband that he was going to take care of it. His way of takinig care of it was by throwing a lawn chair or some junk in the hole and expect it to work.
Over Thanksgiving, my brother in law and i both had the following friday off, so i offered to come over and help him work on it so that the job wouldn't feel so big (my sisters pregnant at this time so she's out of commission). He said that he was planning on working on the yard that day and didn't need my help.
Move on to mid december: my dogs are barking at the front window, and because i live on a fairly busy street, i didn't think anything of it. They just kept on barking, so i looked out, and there were all three of my sisters dogs in my front yard (we live in the same neighborhood, about 3 blocks away). It was 10:30 at night and i called her to tell her that we had her dogs. She sent her husband over to get them, and i asked him, probably sarcastically, how many more times he thougth he was going to get that lucky. The very next morning, my 12 year old niece came over on her way to school and told my husband that the boxers were gone and asked if he would go looking for them. He spent all day driving around searching for them, i came home from lunch and looked, and did the same when i got off of work. When i went back to my sisters house to see if they had come home, low and behold, there was her husband sitting on the couch watching TV and drinking a beer. Not worried about his dogs at all! That upset me pretty bad so i left quickly.
We had a family function that Saturday, so i stopped at the pound to see if hopefully they had been picked up by the dog catcher and i could bring them home. They weren't there and i left in tears.
The next day, i called my sister to see if she had found the dogs and if not had she put out any missing dog signs. It was 2:00 in the afternoon and she still hadn't put any out! It only stays daylight until 5:30 in December so time was running out for anybody to have a chance to see the sign that day. We got into an arguement about it and i told her that if she didn't care about them, that i would put the signs out with my phone number on them. She hung signs and got a call that night from a guy who's friend had picked them up. My sister didn't call me to tell me that they were found, and told the guy who had the dogs that he could keep them if he wanted. I found out a week later when my mom told me what was going on.
Then the next saturday, i got a call from my sister that the dogs had broken out the man's window and were running up and down the street and because she didn't take the signs down she got a call and went and picked them up. I offered to come and get them, but she said no, they were going to fix the yard and keep them. By this point, i'm almost begging for them to let me come and help, they obviously don't knwo what they're doing! She calls the next day and asks me to come over and help her while her husband was doing some Christmas shopping so i did. I went to Lowes and bought an electric fence and all of the supplies, went to her house and started fixing the yard alone. While i'm outside, he calls her and evidentally chewed her out for having me over working on the yard, so i left and took the dogs with me. She didn't seem to care at that point, but wouldn't speak to me at our family Christmas. We haven't spoken since.
She won't let my niece see me anymore because she thinks that i chose the dogs over her, but the way i see it, she chose to let this dog situation get in the way of our being sisters. I miss her, but am not going to apologize for nothing. Am I wrong for this?
Do any of you have any advice for me? I really don't know what to do.
By the way, the two boxers are doing great! I found them both good solid homes with people (friend's co-workers) that understand the breed and their personality traits. They had to be separated, but they went to two brothers that live down the street from each other and have and acre a piece and other dogs. Both are living in the house, have been spayed/neutered, and seem like they now have good lives, adn I can check on them whenever i want.
