Hi Everyone - A few nights ago my boyfriend brought his dog over to my house because we are thinking about moving in together and wanted to start introducing his dog and my cat. The dog was kenneled, but when he needed to go outside to go to the bathroom, he got out of his kennel before I was able to get my cat safely into a bedroom. He charged, attacked her, and fractured her jaw in multiple places. Thankfully, she's recovering from surgery now and expected to have a full recovery (minus now having a misaligned jaw and a few extracted teeth). My boyfriend and I both feel terrible and like the incident was our mistake/naivety.
His dog is a rescue and extremely sweet to humans, but has had a couple of incidents of getting into fights with other dogs. Animal Control has said that he's not going to be ordered to be put down. I'm pleased about that (I would feel terrible if his instinct and our mistake got him put down), but I don't want the dog to be around my nieces/nephews or my future children. Not to mention I have no intention of exposing my cat to dogs now that she's pretty traumatized by the incident, especially the dog that attacked her.
My boyfriend loves this dog (so did I before he attacked my cat), so I feel terrible for suggesting it - but I can't see how we will have a future while he has the dog. I also don't want to rehome my cat. She's my baby and it's not her fault that any of this happened. What would you do? I know that this is more of a relationship issue than an animal issue, but I didn't know where else to turn to get advice. Any help is appreciated!
His dog is a rescue and extremely sweet to humans, but has had a couple of incidents of getting into fights with other dogs. Animal Control has said that he's not going to be ordered to be put down. I'm pleased about that (I would feel terrible if his instinct and our mistake got him put down), but I don't want the dog to be around my nieces/nephews or my future children. Not to mention I have no intention of exposing my cat to dogs now that she's pretty traumatized by the incident, especially the dog that attacked her.
My boyfriend loves this dog (so did I before he attacked my cat), so I feel terrible for suggesting it - but I can't see how we will have a future while he has the dog. I also don't want to rehome my cat. She's my baby and it's not her fault that any of this happened. What would you do? I know that this is more of a relationship issue than an animal issue, but I didn't know where else to turn to get advice. Any help is appreciated!