Reply to BIL brought dog that growls at children to Christmas dinner

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]DH claims he explicitly told BIL no dog. Dog [b]ended up being tied up[/b] in the freezing cold but BIL still seemed eager to bring the dog in. There were eight kids under 12 in attendance, including two toddlers and two babies.

Previous experience with this dog was Thanksgiving dinner where he brought it without permission and no warning it growls at children. For about the first hour BIL would pin the dog to the floor whenever it growled at a child. As time passed and the dog seemed to relax, BIL helped himself to the dinner I cooked and stopped monitoring the dog, so I was left frantically trying to carry a 20 pound baby around while keeping between the f--king dog and my toddler. DH said "What do you want, I'm eating!". SIL gaslighted me saying "It's not a pitbull".

No apology forthcoming. Clearly he and the other in-laws don't think he did anything wrong.

I am considering the nuclear option and reporting the dog to the city. If I did that I would be the big bad meanie forever of the family. Amazingly, BIL is a licensed childcare provider and works in a public school as some kind of an aid for people with special needs.

Is it an over-reaction to report the dog? [/quote]

So let me get this straight.  A month ago this dog growled at children.  Every person there, including your DH was not concerned.  Given that there were 8 kids there, I assume that the parents of these kids were not concerned.  And nobody was hurt.
A few days ago you were at a separate event where the dog was kept outside.  No growling and no incident.

What is the issue?[/quote]

The first event I was hosting and it was only my children. He lied and said he asked permission. He did not.

Second event was the Airbnb potluck. He would have brought the dog into the house with 8 kids had I not thrown a tempter tantrum. Ironically I did leave with the baby and had McDonald's for Christmas dinner, after cooking for an hour and running errands getting last minute items for the group dinner. My husband stayed with the two olders but the whole event was ruined for us. [/quote]

OP, the more you post, the less sympathy I have for your situation, and I say that as a person who is super vigilant about dogs around my kids. Your BIL didn't ruin your Christmas. Neither did your husband. That was all you. It is completely inappropriate to make rules for someone else's event in someone else's space. That it was an AirBNB is irrelevant unless it was YOUR AirBNB, but it wasn't. You threw a temper tantrum and left with your baby why, exactly? Because your BIL didn't want to tie his dog up outside? Because other people didn't agree with your overreaction? If I was your husband, I would be absolutely furious with you for this whole situation. You are justifying extreme overreactions and rudeness as "protecting your children" and it ruined Christmas dinner. You are the only one doing any any damage here and you owe everyone a giant apology.[/quote]

That's fine. No more Christmas dinners. I'm not hosting 20 people in my 2 bedroom apartment. I'm not cooking for an hour and spending money to have McDonald's for dinner. If my MIL wants to choice her adult son's feelings for his dog over seeing her grandchildren, fine with me. I don't like her as a person anyway. [/quote]

You do not actually have the moral high ground here, OP. It's clear that you feel that your behavior was justified. Not everyone agrees with you, and your behavior got pretty nasty on this site. It's not hard to extrapolate the way you behaved on Christmas being similarly unpleasant.

You seem to be forgetting that your children aren't just yours. This is your husband's family. You cannot prohibit them from seeing his family without his agreement, and it sounds like he does not agree that this is reasonable.

How did the conversation you had with your husband about Christmas dinner go, when it happened? Since this felt like such an emergency, I'm sure you initiated a respectful conversation with him about how to keep your children safe. What did he have to say?[/quote]

I literally did not get past the threshhold of the door. I turned around and left.

My husband agrees the dog is dangerous.

I am perfectly happy to be nasty if that is what's necessary. I can be the villain.

I do have absolute veto power on safety. Sorry not sorry. [/quote]

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