To the person whose dog is incontinent-- PLEASE take the dog to the vet. Our dog developed incontinence and giving her a pill once a day (Proin) has cured it completely. This might be a behaviorial issue, but if it is a medical one, and so easily resolved, you really owe it to your husband and the dog to make her last years as comfortable as possible.

It's the fact that LW resents the little time husband spends on the dog which led me to believe she's selfish and that it's not really about the dog.

Also, her thinking she has the right to approve how her husband spends all his free time, stating that early on, walking the dog was OK with her because it wasn't interfering with her husband's other responsibilities. Geeze, is he the office intern with a long list of peon duties? She's a controller who thinks she the boss intead of a co-partner. Can you imagine being her husband and asking permission to watch a football game or read a book?

The dog is the least of this family's worries.

"It's the fact that LW resents the little time husband spends on the dog which led me to believe she's selfish and that it's not really about the dog."

How do we know how much time the husband is spending on the dog? I can completely understand being resentful if I were a working mother with several kids, including a new baby, and whenever I needed help, my husband was out with the dog.

Maybe when they were a young newlywed couple with no kids, it was fine to spend lots of time walking and playing with the dog. But it seems that just as their responsibilities have increased - taking care of these kids and such - her husband is contributing less and instead using the dog as an excuse.

And any of you who think it's no big deal to live in a house that smells of urine all the time - I highly recommend that you try it for a few days and then see if you still think she's being petty.

Things can be done (as I and other letter writers have suggested) to deal with the urine. Why DOES the LW seem to resent time spent caring for the dog? Especially since it's such a small amount of time.

Or conversely, why doesn't she throw the kids in a stroller or whatever and take walks WITH her husband and the dog?

Maybe I'll be accused of being a bitter old spinster or something, but all I can say is that my dogs have reliably outlasted my boyfriends, and have proven significantly more reliable and less expensive. Hoping the current BF will prove me wrong about this, but I have been perfectly frank with him about it--the dogs predated him, they MAY outlast him, and so being asked to "get rid" of them will not happen. It would be like me telling him he could never see his kids because I resented the time spent with them.

What happens when the child vomits on the new carpet, or has an "accident" in his clothing? Is she going to put the child to sleep as well? There are products to neutralize the smell of dog urine and help with the incontinence. Maybe her husband isn't trying all he can, but it's not HIS problem. It's HERS. HER discomfort. HER whining. HER selfishness. If there were not children involved, I'd advise him to leave her. When you marry someone, you take on their whole life. Dogs and other inconveniences are part of that. Deal with it.

the dog is very old; believe me, they're not out romping around that much.

Old dogs can't walk much. You take then out, try to get them to walk and do their business and then you go back inside. They're not running around chasing cats all night long, we're talking 15 minutes AM, PM.

I want to commend Dogged for at least realizing at this date she is not a doggy person, so she can make choices in the future that reflect this. There is that whole for better for worse thing in choosing a committed relationship, and you sign up for that, not matter how insignificant or significant the matter seems to you. I signed up for my husbands family:-}

Couple comments re: the dog. See your vet---who knows what options there are to at least help control incontinence---it might not just be old age.

Your husbands dog probably is as grossed out as you are. When my housetrained dogs pee inside the house, they don't run around going wooohoooo, they usually go go into their space. Their peeing was not by deliberate choice, but mostly because I didn't hear or understand their signal that they need to go out, or that they just couldn't hold it.

There are lots of options for incontinent dogs, male and female. Pads and panties for females, belly bands for males. It is probably a good thing to figure out ways to block off the areas that you want to be no dog zones. At the same time, dogs need to feel like they are part of the pack, so perhaps the dog could have some time outside the small, no stink space. Natures Miracle is a miracle for getting stains and odors out. They also have a kitty litter type product that can be a good choice for absorbing wet stains.

Our house definitely has a doggy odor sometimes because we have two young rambunctious dogs. We clean the best we can, use baking soda when vaccuuming, open windows when it is nice out, light candles, bathe the dog regularly or at least use those baby wipes. We also probably use a can of Oust Spray a week. While these may seem costly in time and dollars, it more than pays for itself in the companionship and comfort of an old friend, which seems to be how your husband feels.

it's "a small part of the house" where the dog is confined. I live with a cat that pees on things far more often than I'd like, and I agree that the smell is unpleasant, but she can avoid sacrificing her "olfactory comfort" by avoiding that "small part" of the house or, as many people have suggested, telling her husband to get some better cleaning products (everyone's right: "Nature's Miracle" is the most effective). Or she could (gasp) take some responsibility for changing the thing that's bugging her and participate in the cleaning, if it's not up to her standards. In the time it took to write Cary, she probably could've made a trip to the pet store, bought one of these fine anti-pet-pee products, and sprayed it on the offending surfaces.

How can she "survive these next few years"? Getting a grip might be a nice start.