Dogs at our house for Thanksgiving

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you are no dog people own it. I would love to host well behaved dogs (no furniture no counter grazing with attentive owners) but at the same time some family may decline the invite if dogs are not included

Dogs over family? You are better off without them coming...

[Anonymous]

I have a dog. I would NOT want dogs at family gatherings!!!

[Anonymous]

Say no dogs. Next year they can host and say no kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It never ceases to amaze me what entitled a**holes dog owners can be. Who the he** do they think they are? Your house. Your rules. No dogs. Period.

This goes both ways. OP is being sort of inflexible here. THere are some options in between. But it's "Her New House." Get over it sweetie. Wait until you have kids.

No, not really. It really is abnormal to expect that an invitation to a person's house or event includes your animals. They are not part of your family. They are animals. Animals. They don't get invited places.

[Anonymous]

I am a dog person fwiw. Are they assuming they can bring their dogs without actually asking you? If this is the case I would be irked. I actually have 2 dogs and one is a jerk so we don’t allow other dogs in our house for that reason. In a legit emergency I would put my dog in my bedroom if I had to and keep separated from visiting dog. In tour situation you are setting something in place for forever. You need to plan as you mean to go on. If you don’t want dogs at all say that. They can decide then if they come or not. If the plan changes though to someone else hosting as done in previous years are you ok with that? Would u rather accept dogs because u want to host. Or travel if the location moves?

[Anonymous]

NO DOGS!!
Your house, your rules.
I would go smack off if someone insisted on bringing an unwanted animal to my home.

[Anonymous]

I will begin this by saying I am emphatically not a dog person and I do not allow dogs in my house. I think you should tell them no dogs, and if you say the dogs can come but have to stay outside/in garage these do not sound like people who are going to honor that. The dogs will be inside before appetizers are out.

That said, if your no dog policy means that a long-awaited gathering that 20+ people are looking forward to ends up imploding, then you need to graciously allow someone else to host who is willing to accept the dogs. I’m guessing you offered to host TG in your new home and are excited about doing so, but you it’s going to feel like a bait and switch to the dog people if they’ve always been able to bring the dogs before. If I am guessing wrong and you are actually hosting under duress because no one else wants to, then someone else needs to step up or they all need to put up with your no dogs rule.

[Anonymous]

How do you know they are planning to bring large dogs? Sounds like some conversation on this has already happened, which would have been the time to say the event is dog-free.

[Anonymous]

If I’ve always gone to Aunt Maude’s house for Thanksgiving and brought my dog and now you want to host but not allow my dog or say it has to stay in the garage, I am going to request that we move it back to Aunt Maude’s house. I think it’s fair for you to say no dogs on couch , beds etc.

[Anonymous]

Firm boundaries, no dogs. Let them decline the invitation and not come. It is your house. Once you start you can never go back or it will cause a bigger fight. I’m a huge dog lover and don’t let other people’s dogs in my house. I also don’t bring any of my pets to houses on holidays. We get a pet sitter or dog walker. Or we use it as an excuse if we want to decline!

[Anonymous]

Under normal circumstances I would be 100% in the no dog camp but given that it sounds like there’s a long-standing tradition of people bringing their pets and banning them will cause some normal attendees to forgo attending (ridiculous as that may be) I agree that it really hinges on whether you stepped up because the prior hosts/no one else was willing to or whether you specifically sought out hosting because you were excited to show off your new place. If the latter, let someone else who is willing to keep with traditions and allow pets host thanksgiving and start a new tradition of your own by hosting a pet free event for a different date.

[Anonymous]

OP - no excuse for not thinking about The Dog Issue before now. It should have been on your mind long before you issued an invitation. You knew the landscape.

[Anonymous]

OP here. These responses are really helpful, thanks. No there is no tradition of people bringing dogs to the holidays. For one family it is a brand new dog (they’ve had it for less than a year) and the other family is usually excluded from family gatherings but they live close so we invited them. It had never occurred to me they would want to bring dogs to such a crowded gathering until they mentioned it.

[Anonymous]

OP again. Also sorry I did the math wrong on the number of guests it’s more like 14 I forgot that some of the kids will not be showing up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Get on Nextdoor and see if anyone has large crates you can borrow. The dogs are free to come out to go on walks but not free to roam around and get into food or get your (company clean as my mom would say) house dirty.

This coming from a poster who's dog is the size of a horse. I love my dog but I do NOT bring my dog to other people's homes and don't want other dogs in my home.

This is a terrible idea.
Not every dog is crate trained.
If you try to put a dog that isn't crate trained into a crate, they will become beside themselves with anxiety and end up pee'ing & getting diarrhea all over themselves, and then the nightmare really begins.

It sounds as if these people would never DREAM about crating their dogs, and if they don't, you shouldn't either.

I like the fenced in yard idea, and Thanksgiving isn't too chilly around here usually.

What about a garage or a basement like laundry room?