RANT HERE thread

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Stb1473 said:
😱 What area of vet med are you trying to focus on?
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I've stupidly decided to follow my heart and pursue exotic/wildilfe/zoo med. I'm trying to be picky with places I choose due to costs (picking places with housing, nominal housing fees, or close enough to friends/family that I can commute), so it may just be the places I'm applying to. I'm going to have to increase my pool of potential places, I guess. 🙁
 
epivetlove said:
I've stupidly decided to follow my heart and pursue exotic/wildilfe/zoo med. I'm trying to be picky with places I choose due to costs (picking places with housing, nominal housing fees, or close enough to friends/family that I can commute), so it may just be the places I'm applying to. I'm going to have to increase my pool of potential places, I guess. 🙁
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Which ones are you looking at?
 
pinkpuppy9 said:
Which ones are you looking at?
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Dallas Zoo, Fort Worth Zoo, and Zoo Atlanta are all booked into early (Jan-April) 2018, though Dallas Zoo may have a summer 2017 cancellation (fingers crossed!). I'm waiting to hear back about Houston Zoo and the Wildlife Center of Virginia. I've booked a 6-week rotation at Fossil Rim. I also plan on doing 4 weeks at an exotics-only clinic, but I wanted to get the zoo/wildlife places cemented since private practice allows for a little more flexibility in dates. I've considered places like Disney, San Diego, National Zoo, and a few others, but really...it's coming down to 1) $$$ and 2) how our block schedule is set-up. My faculty mentor knows A LOT of people, so I'm not super concerned, but I am a bit surprised that some of these places have filled up this far in advance. I was told I was doing well by already applying, but clearly I should have put my applications out there last year. 🙁
 
epivetlove said:
Dallas Zoo, Fort Worth Zoo, and Zoo Atlanta are all booked into 2018, though Dallas Zoo may have a summer 2017 cancellation (fingers crossed!). I'm waiting to hear back about Houston Zoo and the Wildlife Center of Virginia. I've booked a 6-week rotation at Fossil Rim. I also plan on doing 4 weeks at an exotics-only clinic, but I wanted to get the zoo/wildlife places cemented since private practice allows for a little more flexibility in dates. I've considered places like Disney, San Diego, National Zoo, and a few others, but really...it's coming down to 1) $$$ and 2) how our block schedule is set-up. My faculty mentor knows A LOT of people, so I'm not super concerned, but I am a bit surprised that some of these places have filled up this far in advance. I was told I was doing well by already applying, but clearly I should have put my applications out there last year. 🙁
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Oh definitely, those three are for sure booked out 🙁 The 6 you listed are probably the most competitive in the country. National zoo...you probably had to have set that up during your first year (which I don't understand why they allow that...). I'm setting up Disney now, but they also knew I was coming. I just am a little worried about my GPA being an issue....I only have 2 grades under my name and I don't meet the minimums everywhere. So I guess applying early is bad in that way for me. Damn mega-courses.

At one point, Disney said you would apply 2 years prior to the year you want to attend, which would limit the craziness. I think that got lost, though.
 
pinkpuppy9 said:
Oh definitely, those three are for sure booked out 🙁 The 6 you listed are probably the most competitive in the country. National zoo...you probably had to have set that up during your first year (which I don't understand why they allow that...). I'm setting up Disney now, but they also knew I was coming. I just am a little worried about my GPA being an issue....I only have 2 grades under my name and I don't meet the minimums everywhere. So I guess applying early is bad in that way for me. Damn mega-courses.

At one point, Disney said you would apply 2 years prior to the year you want to attend, which would limit the craziness. I think that got lost, though.
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Yeah, I suppose. The vet at Dallas Zoo told me 6-9 months in advance should be good back when I visited in early 2015. I never gave Disney serious thought (just briefly looked at the requirements today after hearing back from Dallas) because their available times can be tricky to fit into our schedule. Alternative track people are kinda treated like 2nd-class citizens here, lol. I was pretty set on Fossil Rim, Dallas Zoo, and Wildlife Center of Virginia being my three since I'd only be out money for the one (Wildlife Center). Fossil Rim provides housing and a stipend which is unheard of for most any externship so I was surprised and delighted to snag a spot. We have a large group of exotic/zoo veterinarians coming next weekend for our annual Wet Lab, so I'm planning to schmooze a bit and see what happens. As far as GPA, none of the places I've sent apps to have requested my transcripts or rank. Maybe it's just a Disney thing?
 
epivetlove said:
Yeah, I suppose. The vet at Dallas Zoo told me 6-9 months in advance should be good back when I visited in early 2015. I never gave Disney serious thought (just briefly looked at the requirements today after hearing back from Dallas) because their available times can be tricky to fit into our schedule. Alternative track people are kinda treated like 2nd-class citizens here, lol. I was pretty set on Fossil Rim, Dallas Zoo, and Wildlife Center of Virginia being my three since I'd only be out money for the one (Wildlife Center). Fossil Rim provides housing and a stipend which is unheard of for most any externship so I was surprised and delighted to snag a spot. We have a large group of exotic/zoo veterinarians coming next weekend for our annual Wet Lab, so I'm planning to schmooze a bit and see what happens. As far as GPA, none of the places I've sent apps to have requested my transcripts or rank. Maybe it's just a Disney thing?
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Could be! I also plan on spending a month at my home zoo so that will work out for me at least.

Get your schmooze on!
 
Mom: If you had made less money I could have claimed you as a dependent and gotten $600 more on my tax return!

Uh huh, and that is somehow better than the $1300 more I made than the maximum they allow for dependents. Yup, makes total sense.

By the way. Apparently the US govt thinks someone can be independent while making $4000 a year.
 
Yesterday I made the dumbest mistake I ever made in my kitchen...derped and grabbed a pan handle which was still hot from the broiler. Suffered second degree burns all over my left hand, palm and fingers. Family was out of town so I showed up crying on a neighbor's doorstep, asking for a ride to the clinic. Three hours later (after freaking out the PA on duty with crying due to the pain), I have a mummy-bandaged hand, tetanus shot, Torb IM, and a script for percocet which makes me nauseous. Pretty ****ty night.

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And...the icing on the terrible cake is that I got into the Overwatch stress test this weekend and I can't actually play because sausage fingers. :dead:
 
WildZoo said:
Mom: If you had made less money I could have claimed you as a dependent and gotten $600 more on my tax return!

Uh huh, and that is somehow better than the $1300 more I made than the maximum they allow for dependents. Yup, makes total sense.

By the way. Apparently the US govt thinks someone can be independent while making $4000 a year.
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That's interesting, when I was making 15,000 a year, my mom was still claiming me as a dependent and still making a decent amount of money off of me.
 
SummerTheLynx said:
I was, I guess that must be the difference?
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Yup. If you're full time it doesn't seem to matter how much you make, but if you're not (and I wasn't since full time is 5 months and I graduated in April), you have to make under $4000 to be claimed.
 
SummerTheLynx said:
I was, I guess that must be the difference?
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I went and read the rules.
To be claimed as a dependent child, you either have to be under 19 or under 24 and a full time student. So she can't claim me there.
To be claimed as a dependent relative, you have to make under $4000 (the assumption seems to be if you make $4000 you can pay for half of your living expenses and therefore are not a dependent at all. Still blows my mind).
So now I have to go edit my tax return because when I did it I thought she could claim me as a dependent. TurboTax failed me because it definitely should have caught that it wasn't possible. Looks like I'll be getting some money back though, so that's cool.
 
SummerTheLynx said:
That's interesting, when I was making 15,000 a year, my mom was still claiming me as a dependent and still making a decent amount of money off of me.
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This happened to me last year. However I claimed myself as independent, so my parents got audited and had to fix that. Not my problem. You don't get to claim me when you are providing 0 support.
 
flameshock said:
Yesterday I made the dumbest mistake I ever made in my kitchen...derped and grabbed a pan handle which was still hot from the broiler. Suffered second degree burns all over my left hand, palm and fingers. Family was out of town so I showed up crying on a neighbor's doorstep, asking for a ride to the clinic. Three hours later (after freaking out the PA on duty with crying due to the pain), I have a mummy-bandaged hand, tetanus shot, Torb IM, and a script for percocet which makes me nauseous. Pretty ****ty night.

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And...the icing on the terrible cake is that I got into the Overwatch stress test this weekend and I can't actually play because sausage fingers. :dead:
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Holy crap ouch. 🙁
 
About an hour away from a midterm I feel hopelessly unprepared for, even though I've been studying all week. I just can't get male repro anatomy to stick (pun not intended, but I'm gonna leave it there).
 
pinkpuppy9 said:
About an hour away from a midterm I feel hopelessly unprepared for, even though I've been studying all week. I just can't get male repro anatomy to stick (pun not intended, but I'm gonna leave it there).
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You just need to study more. Maybe try some hands-on learning.

😉
 
Got rear-ended on my way home from work a couple hours ago. I was coming to a stop near an intersection and this guy just slams into me, causing me to hit the lady's car in front of me. No one was hurt, I'm just a little shaken, but my car took the brunt of the damage. The back of my car surprisingly just has some paint damage, but my hood is crunched in. Their cars just had minor damage. And of course the guy that hit me doesn't have insurance. He said he'd just gotten the car and was literally on his way to get tags and insurance sorted out, when the brakes locked up. I'm not sure if I completely believe him. 🙄 I've only had this car for two years, it was a college graduation present from my grandpa. 🙁 It definitely could have been worse, but still really sucks.
 
LyraGardenia said:
Got rear-ended on my way home from work a couple hours ago. I was coming to a stop near an intersection and this guy just slams into me, causing me to hit the lady's car in front of me. No one was hurt, I'm just a little shaken, but my car took the brunt of the damage. The back of my car surprisingly just has some paint damage, but my hood is crunched in. Their cars just had minor damage. And of course the guy that hit me doesn't have insurance. He said he'd just gotten the car and was literally on his way to get tags and insurance sorted out, when the brakes locked up. I'm not sure if I completely believe him. 🙄 I've only had this car for two years, it was a college graduation present from my grandpa. 🙁 It definitely could have been worse, but still really sucks.
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This type of situation happened to a friend of mine recently (in California) except the truck the guy was driving didn't even belong to him. She got all of his information and claimed the accident on her insurance and had to pay $500 out of pocket. It ended up costing $4500 to fix her car, which her insurance paid for. Her insurance company launched an investigation on the guy and turns out he was truthful - the car didn't belong to him, he wasn't insured, and he didn't even have a drivers license. Once that was verified her insurance company refunded her $500 deductible and is suing that man (which she luckily has nothing to do with). Fingers crossed your situation turns out similarly :xf:
 
LyraGardenia said:
Got rear-ended on my way home from work a couple hours ago. I was coming to a stop near an intersection and this guy just slams into me, causing me to hit the lady's car in front of me. No one was hurt, I'm just a little shaken, but my car took the brunt of the damage. The back of my car surprisingly just has some paint damage, but my hood is crunched in. Their cars just had minor damage. And of course the guy that hit me doesn't have insurance. He said he'd just gotten the car and was literally on his way to get tags and insurance sorted out, when the brakes locked up. I'm not sure if I completely believe him. 🙄 I've only had this car for two years, it was a college graduation present from my grandpa. 🙁 It definitely could have been worse, but still really sucks.
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Glad you're okay!!
 
LyraGardenia said:
Got rear-ended on my way home from work a couple hours ago. I was coming to a stop near an intersection and this guy just slams into me, causing me to hit the lady's car in front of me. No one was hurt, I'm just a little shaken, but my car took the brunt of the damage. The back of my car surprisingly just has some paint damage, but my hood is crunched in. Their cars just had minor damage. And of course the guy that hit me doesn't have insurance. He said he'd just gotten the car and was literally on his way to get tags and insurance sorted out, when the brakes locked up. I'm not sure if I completely believe him. 🙄 I've only had this car for two years, it was a college graduation present from my grandpa. 🙁 It definitely could have been worse, but still really sucks.
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Oh no! I'm glad you're okay and I hope everything gets sorted out quickly for you!
 
I just got home and was hit by the stench of anal glands as soon as I entered the house. Turns out, that fishy smell actually is from my hubby's fish lunch. It's not anal glands at all, and it isn't going away.


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My dad's pup knocked my laptop mouse off the table overnight, and the top cover popped off so he chewed that up and ruined it. Now the mouse is "naked" and in order to be able to click the buttons, I had to make a very trashy setup by sticking screws and napkin pieces in it...LOL. I've had this mouse since I started undergrad so I guess this is my excuse to get a new one.
 
Devastating said:
My dad's pup knocked my laptop mouse off the table overnight, and the top cover popped off so he chewed that up and ruined it. Now the mouse is "naked" and in order to be able to click the buttons, I had to make a very trashy setup by sticking screws and napkin pieces in it...LOL. I've had this mouse since I started undergrad so I guess this is my excuse to get a new one.
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Well that shouldn't be too expensive to replace. Unless you have a fancy gaming mouse....then I'm sorry for your loss. 😢
 
I'm only three weeks from leaving my college town, and maybe a month and a half from leaving Louisiana. I've honestly been very excited to leave but it's just sad that I've grown to despise my undergrad so much in this last year. I've put so much time into my experience here.
 
flameshock said:
Well that shouldn't be too expensive to replace. Unless you have a fancy gaming mouse....then I'm sorry for your loss. 😢
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Haha, nope just a basic USB one which I've gotten plenty of use out of for how cheap I got it. Now I can get a fancier bluetooth or something, at least!
 
EngrSC said:
This type of situation happened to a friend of mine recently (in California) except the truck the guy was driving didn't even belong to him. She got all of his information and claimed the accident on her insurance and had to pay $500 out of pocket. It ended up costing $4500 to fix her car, which her insurance paid for. Her insurance company launched an investigation on the guy and turns out he was truthful - the car didn't belong to him, he wasn't insured, and he didn't even have a drivers license. Once that was verified her insurance company refunded her $500 deductible and is suing that man (which she luckily has nothing to do with). Fingers crossed your situation turns out similarly :xf:
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That would definitely be the best case scenario! My dad and I filed the insurance claim last night and I'll be taking my car in on Tuesday to get a quote on the repairs, so we'll see what happens. I've also got a $500 deductible.
Gwenevre said:
Glad you're okay!!
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CatLover91 said:
Oh no! I'm glad you're okay and I hope everything gets sorted out quickly for you!
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Thanks guys! My neck is a bit sore today, so I guess I got some whiplash, but mainly I'm just sad about my car.
 
WildZoo said:
Hope your kitty is alright
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she was constipated. And is now doing much better, thanks. However, I got home today. and the other cat started meowing strangely and found what appears to be bloody vomit from him. I thought it was from her because her activity level had changed and she started with strange behavior. Guess my boy gets to come in with me on Weds. Treating him at home in the meantime
 
dyachei said:
she was constipated. And is now doing much better, thanks. However, I got home today. and the other cat started meowing strangely and found what appears to be bloody vomit from him. I thought it was from her because her activity level had changed and she started with strange behavior. Guess my boy gets to come in with me on Weds. Treating him at home in the meantime
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:/ Hopefully he's alright too. Sucks when they have issues back to back like that.
 
Sitting at the table working. Roommate barges in and the first thing she does is turn off the lights while I am working. Literally just walks in and flips all the light switches off. Something something you don't need to use that much electricity. Now she's pacing around the house awkwardly blaring some rap music and slamming doors. ????
 
rockatiel said:
Sitting at the table working. Roommate barges in and the first thing she does is turn off the lights while I am working. Literally just walks in and flips all the light switches off. Something something you don't need to use that much electricity. Now she's pacing around the house awkwardly blaring some rap music and slamming doors. ????
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Clearly you should be using candles to light your workspace after dark.
 
I feel like my pets decide together when to have issues. When I left for the weekend, my rabbit was being off and not pooping a lot (cue the anxiety). Cats were fine. I get home, and casually watch my dog drain a bowl of water. Turns out that my mom has been refilling her bowl 2-3 times a day for a few weeks now, which isn't normal for my dog. I had to explain that changes like that should turn into a vet visit and to please let me know about them. I get back to my apartment. Rabbit is in good spirits, one cat is fine, my big orange cat has a complete voice change. And he either got clawed or bit in the back of his neck during a wrestle match. It's superficial, but the voice change is what freaks me out. I'll have to ask my roomies if he was extra vocal this weekend...maybe he just lost his voice. Hopefully it's nothing, but he's got an appointment coming up with a doctor that specializes in paw repair so I might as well kill two birds with one stone.
 
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.
 
Cometbt said:
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.
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My advice is to get out ASAP. Like, seriously. Communicate with your upcoming vet class, find some potential roommates, look for a summer job in the town where you'll be attending, and move out earlier rather than later if you can. Cat-friendly apartments are much easier to find than dog-friendly apartments, and not all of them break the bank. I'm sorry this is happening to you.
 
Cometbt said:
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.
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I'm so sorry you are dealing with all of this. It sounds like a terribly frustrating situation. You are leaving for school relatively soon, so at least you can look forward to that. Do you have any friends or other extended family that would let you stay with them for a little bit? Like a week at a time? Just to get you out of the house for a little while but you could stay in the area so you can do some of things and see the people you want to do/see before vet school? I hope things get better at least. You can always rant here.
 
Thanks for the support guys. I'm trying really hard to get out of this and keep my mental health in check. I just felt like I hit a breaking point so it really helped to be able to post some of my frustration here. I keep telling myself there's only a few months left but it just feels like it's going by so slow 🙁 I stayed with some friends immediately after my dog died and it helped a lot, but it's exhausting having to jump from place to place. It's hard to think about having to leave again, but I know if I was talking to someone else I would tell them it's better to leave. I'm very fortunate I have a great support system, I just feel a little lost because I'm in an awkward place between school and jobs and such and all my friends are working/at school. I'm not used to having downtime like this.
 
Like everyone else says, get out of there. NOW.
Also, try to record anything aggressive your brother does. I don't mean sit there and video him attacking you, but you said he was repeatedly slamming his door and throwing things. If you can record that stuff safely, do it. If he screams at you through your door but is not physically threatening you, record him.


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