When you adopt a dog, you are signing up to take care of it for many years, and that can be really difficult.

What happens when the dog you adopted has serious behavior issues that you can’t get under control, and it causes lots of damage and even scratches your kids?

That is what the mom in this story is dealing with, and she still doesn’t want to give up the dog even though her husband thinks they should.

Read on and see what you think.

AITA for refusing to give up the family dog?

My (23F) husband (27M) has told me that he no longer wants to keep one of our family dogs.

For context, we first got this dog from my husband’s mother when he was around 16 weeks old when she found him and two of his siblings on the side of the road; he is now around 18 months old.

We took him in to ease her load, and since then, his brother was put down due to aggression, and his sister got hit by a car.

Dogs can be very destructive when they are puppies.

All three dogs were destructive and reserved around humans.

Luckily, we spent much time with our dog and got him to trust us.

We got a DNA test done, and the results showed that he is a mutt.

He has every sort of bread in him you could imagine: German shepherd, pit bull, bulldog, Australian shepherd, and even chow (to name a few).

Umm, mixed breed dogs are often the best behaved.

Part of me has wondered if he’s too much of a mixed bread to train correctly and has lousy genetics.

This dog is my husband’s dog; even though it was a joint decision to bring him into the family, he bonded with my husband.

Their relationship has been strained recently as we’ve moved house, becoming homeowners.

Our dog is high-energy.

He can’t sit still ever and has even put a significant dent in our living room wall.

Those kids are in danger if they can’t control the dog.

We have two young children, who he is never aggressive towards, but he constantly knocks them down, jumps on them, and scratches them.

This dog also loves to chew on everything.

He’s destroyed countless toys, clothing items, Xbox controllers, and remotes.

He has also started to chew on our deck and destroy the outside furniture and the hose.

We try and redirect him, but he doesn’t care.

We’ve bought him stimulating toys and a bunch of sniffer treats, but he destroys everything we buy him.

That is quite the investment.

We spent over $2000 on training for him, and even after months, much progress has yet to be made.

Our yard is not fenced, but he is hooked up to a long leash to move while outside alone.

He likes to dig holes and has been digging into our foundations over the last few weeks.

It’s caused the deck’s wood to crack, and he’s chipping away at the concrete.

He’s also tried to dig up our neighbor’s fence, and we’ve had to fill it in numerous times.

That leads me to the problem.

I can’t say that I blame him.

My husband no longer wants to keep him.

He feels like we’ve tried everything we can afford to do to correct him.

He worries he will cost us more money in the future, and we won’t be able to repair whatever he breaks.

He is also concerned that he will accidentally hurt the kids.

From my perspective, I feel guilty knowing that we took him in as our responsibility, and now we are giving up on him.

I feel bad for the kids, who will be sad if he goes.

I never felt connected too much to this dog, but I still view him as a part of this family, and a part of me struggles with the idea of not having him around.

My husband now believes I am picking the dog over his happiness, as he continually feels financially stressed about what the dog will do next.

He is the only one who works; I am a student.

AITA?

That is a difficult decision to make, but if you can’t keep the dog from hurting the kids, it has to go.

Let’s see what other people in the comments say.

The dog doesn’t know what a promise is.

Yup, this dog is not a good fit for this home.

This comment lists several reasons to rehome the dog.

This person makes it clear that the dog needs more exercise.

If you can’t give the dog a safe and happy life, it needs to be rehomed.

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