You know, I'm really glad this thread exists. I desperately need to talk to someone but there's no one around that's available and I feel like I'm going to explode. I got accepted into an OOS vet school that I really really wanted to go to so this is my last summer at home and it should be amazing. My best friends from high school are all in town, probably for the last time ever and I finally have the time to try activities that I've been wanting to do forever but never had time to do. But I can't enjoy any of this. I'm more miserable than I've ever been and I don't even know if I can make it to the start of vet school. It's a very long story, so strap in. I just really need to get this out.
Since January, I've lost our family dog, my dog, and my grandma. Two of these were old age related, but unexpected. My dog, however, was young and healthy but developed very serious and dangerous aggression issues that ended up putting someone in the hospital and getting us into a huge lawsuit. I was away on an internship when this happened and got a call from my city's police station telling me what happened. This was last summer. Fast forward and we went to multiple trainers, had thorough medical exams, went to a veterinary behaviorist, tried medication, basically everything you could think of and he wasn't getting better. Now I should explain, this dog was my baby. He was my best friend and I have a background in dog training so not being able to fix this was killing me. After a really nasty close call where he almost grabbed someone's neck, we had talked to our behaviorist about one more option, but since he was starting to aim for people's faces and other sensitive areas without any warning (and I mean no warning, not "people were unable to read his warnings") this was his last hope. Now before I continue with the dog, I need to explain my brother: he is emotionally and physically abusive, unstable, delusional, narcissistic, bipolar, and generally terrible to be around. I finished a semester early so I'm living at home until I start vet school in August, and trying to explain the severity of the situation to him was impossible. So, the day after we had made a plan with our behaviorist my brother left our front door ajar and my dog got out and attacked someone. Fortunately, it was still cold out so she had a really thick jacket on but he ripped through it and broke the skin there and again on her leg. After this we had to make the horrible decision to put him down. Most of our neighbors have kids and we live on a very busy suburban street. There was no way we could keep him anymore. And yes, we did look into having someone take him but the level of expertise to handle a dog like him was just not available. This dog was the most amazingly sweet and gentle animal with people he knew, which made it so much harder. But not only was his quality of life suffering because he had to be locked up all the time, I was having anxiety attacks when I wasn't home because I was afraid someone would accidentally let him get out. I'd been dealing with this for about 6 months and it was affecting my health too. That being said, if there was a way I could have kept him I would have kept living as an anxious mess for the rest of his life. I loved him that much. But we knew it wasn't a question of if he would bite someone again, but how hard he would bite. I was honestly scared he would kill someone. One of the places he was biting was very close to the femoral artery. It was terrifying. There might be people on here thinking that someone like me shouldn't have gotten into vet school, or that I'm a terrible person for putting my dog down or for not putting him down sooner. I've heard all of these, and thought much worse of myself. I really don't want to argue about that, I just want to get my rant out. I can guarantee that there is nothing you could think or say about me that could be worse than the horrible pain I felt over this decision. Anyway, when we told my brother our decision he threatened us. A few days before putting my dog down my brother attacked me. He started blaming me for everything and he was towering over me and threatening me so I went to push him away, which was dumb I know but I was scared and angry. He started hitting me and twisted my arm so bad I had to go to the ER.
Through all this, my parents were honestly awful. I felt like they didn't understand the severity (my brother of course was lying and saying I used my "kickboxing" on him and he just "tapped me" to defend himself--I don't even do kickboxing...). I said I didn't want to be alone in the house with him and the next day they went to work anyway. I understand work is important, but I didn't feel safe in my own house. Since the incident I have not cooled off toward my brother (who feels no remorse by the way) and my said to me once that "she raised me better than that". My shoulder wasn't dislocated or broken or anything so no one seemed to make it a priority. It still hurts. This happened two months ago and I still can't use it much. This is part of the reason I'm so frustrated--I can't do most of the activities I wanted. I'd been doing parkour, which I'd been dying to do forever, and training for the Tough Mudder (and I was getting strong!) and now I can barely use it. So now I have to sit at home more, because I can't risk re-injuring my shoulder. My parents did finally apologize and start to work on getting my brother to leave, but I doubt that'll happen before the summer's over. He's crazy. If you throw a crazy person out on the street, it will come back to bite you. So I get why they're taking their time but he's not getting any better. He doesn't feel any remorse for what happened, and in fact told me that I was just being a "little bitch" about it. I have to go to physical therapy, and I'm just being a "little bitch". And the worst part is sometimes I feel like it's true. There's no observable injury so sometimes I feel like I'm overreacting.
So in addition to all of this, we are still dealing with the lawsuit from the lady my dog bit. It was definitely a serious bite, but not as serious as she's making it out to be. She wants a ridiculous amount of money, which she decided after she told us she wasn't going to take legal action and that it wasn't a big deal. We definitely have no problem paying her medical bills--it was our fault. She did nothing to taunt the dog or anything (my brother blames her anyway). However, the amount she wants is insane so of course our insurance company wont pay the full amount, so she's taking us to court. In the meantime, we had to sign a legal document saying we wouldn't get another dog until this all gets figured out, or we'd lose our excess liability insurance. I can get a dog if I move, but I don't really want to get one as soon as I start vet school. Too much stress for me. My mom, dad, and I really missed having an animal around (it'd been almost 14 years since we'd been dog-less) so we decided to get a cat. My brother is mildly allergic (at least he says he is) so he threw a stink about it. The cat has been incredibly sweet and well behaved, except for some mild separation anxiety (loud meowing) that he has since gotten much better about. It was probably about a week and a half that we had this problem, and it wasn't even that excessive. I mean, that's it. No inappropriate scratching, no refusal to use the litter box, no aggressive behavior, just some meowing. And my brother sometimes likes the cat--when he's trying to impress a girl, when he's high (oh yeah, he also has a substance abuse problem) and generally just when he's not in one of his weird angry moods. So I thought it was going well. Boy was I wrong. This morning, my cat wandered into his room (the door is closed 99% of the time he's home, even before we had the cat) and I didn't realize it because I got up to brush my teeth and stuff. Well I grabbed the cat, no big deal and went to close his door and he threw a fit, claiming he wants the door open and I never let him keep it open or something. He dropped something on his foot last night and he was pissed at my mom about it (no idea why) so he was really just taking out on me and the cat because he can. Well this started a whole fight where my mom ended up closing his door and going to work. Once she was gone, he started slamming his door over and over and throwing dishes around. Since I'd been planning on going in my room anyway, as I normally do in the morning and since I was starting to get scared, I closed and locked my door. This was a mistake. He started being a bully and saying how "damn straight you better close that" and calling me all sorts of horrible names I wont repeat on here. I kept yelling for him to leave me alone and trying to explain how ridiculous he was being (I know, stupid to argue with a crazy person but I'm at the end of my rope here) and he just kept screaming and screaming. He ended up calling my dad and that wouldn't bother me because my parents know he's a crazy liar, but I could hear him on the phone pretending to be so calm and polite while making me out as a screaming "banshee" (his actual word choice) which is the same thing he did when he explained how my arm got hurt. The best part of all this is that he was only home for 10 min or so anyway before leaving the house and he had his door closed almost the entire time so there really wasn't a reason to fight anyway.
I can't take it. I want to leave so badly but I don't know what to do. I'm only working twice a week now at my old job, so I'm hoping once I get my new job (which I've been promised for May) I'll at least be out of the house more. But even just occupying the same space as him is emotionally exhausting. I can't explain how awful it is to sit at Easter dinner with the person that put you in the hospital and pretend like everything is ok. I don't want to miss out on the last opportunity to see my friends and my parents, but I don't know if I can take being here any longer. I also don't know what to do with my cat. I wont leave him here with my brother, but unless I move into a pet friendly apartment or something (which I don't have the money for) I think I'm stuck here.
**
I can't imagine doing that in a busy intersection though! I usually walked the bike in really busy pedestrian areas because I feared bumping into someone.
