Imagine living in a location where wildlife sometimes comes onto your property. If you told your teen to keep your dog on a leash and they didn’t, would you make them face the consequences?

In this story, one woman decided that her family needs to keep their dog on a leash so he doesn’t run off and get sprayed by a skunk, but her teen decided to let the dog run free.

Let’s see how the story plays out.

AITAH for making my teenager wash the dog?

A skunk keeps getting into our fenced in property at night. Our property backs to woods, so we get a lot of wildlife and I’m very much “live and let live”.

Our dog had been sprayed about four times. Each time, I have cleaned the dog by myself with no help from anyone.

It’s gross and time consuming and I hate it.

They have a new policy, but her teen didn’t follow it.

So, now the policy in our household has been that at night, we have to take the dog out on a leash. It’s a pain, but we’ve been doing that for a few weeks.

Tonight, I asked my teenager to take the dog outside. Instead of following the policy, he just let the dog outside and of course he got sprayed again.

I told my teenager that washing the dog was not my responsibility. He let the dog out, it was his responsibility to clean it. I said I would help him but it was his responsibility to do the majority of the cleaning.

The punishment absolutely fits the crime! It’s not even a punishment. It’s more like a consequence.

He said that the punishment didn’t fit the crime. He said that it was an accident and he shouldn’t be punished. He screamed at me and said I was a horrible mother.

I responded that this was the natural consequence of not following the policy. Whether he did it on purpose or not makes no difference.

I did make him wash the dog and followed through, and I helped him, but I guess I’m second guessing myself now.

I know other parents who would have just dropped it. AITAH for making him wash the dog?

The teen can complain all he wants, but he chose not to follow the rules and found out why the rules exist in the first place. If he is forced to deal with the consequences for his actions, he’ll be more likely to follow the rules in the future.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

This person thinks she was being generous by helping him wash the dog.

It was definitely the natural consequence for the action.

It wasn’t an accident.

It might be time to rehome the skunk.

I wouldn’t want a skunk on my property.

If you enjoyed that story, read this one about a mom who was forced to bring her three kids with her to apply for government benefits, but ended up getting the job of her dreams.