Life Requires Compromise

 My Brother’s 7 month old Dog has to be given away because of collateral damage between myself and my mother, on the extreme ways she goes to teaching the pets. I am so ashamed and upset at myself.

 

I'm going to give you a run down as unbiased as I can. So I will name myself in the third person.

So, over an hour ago [January 15, 2012 at around 6 PM]

Mom, Aunt, Grandma, and Grandpa are in the room playing cards.

Alex and Jimmy are in the living room, Alex playing Final Fantasy XIII and Jimmy on the Laptop watching.

Shadow and Larka are in the kitchen eating their dinner.

Jimmy has been going back and forth from the Kitchen and the Living Room making one spring roll at a time, the kitchen table has a bowl of mint, a bowl of beef and shrimp, a bowl of water, and some Spring Roll Sheets. Jimmy, because he was in the process of eating, did not correctly re-saran wrap the bowl of meat.

Shadow makes a noise and Jimmy and Alex turn around to see him on the table with an empty plate. Alex proceeds to get Shadow off the table while Jimmy goes into the Kitchen to get him. Alex is scolding Shadow for eating the plate, chasing him and hitting him whenever he gets the chance. Shadow runs all the way into the room where the other Adults are playing Card Games with Alex following suit*.

He quickly grabs him and tells everyone what has happened and then brings him upstairs to his crate where he tells Shadow that he did a bad thing and hits his butt. Mom, Aunt, Grandma, and Grandpa go to the kitchen to see what has happened and ask for another debrief.

Mom, being angry goes upstairs and says she's going to teach him. And I told her that we already punished him. She still goes ahead, grabs the broom stick, hits his cage a few times, and then opens it. Whilst this is happening, Jimmy is rushing upstairs to stop her and take Shadow outside where he should stay the night.

Halfway up, Shadow starts to scream and cry for his life. Upon reaching the top, Jimmy sees a broom stick shoved into Shadow's room where he is backing into the corner and Mother is swaying it in front of Shadow. Jimmy tells Mom that they have already punished him and that Jimmy will be taking him outside for the night.

An Altercation begins where Jimmy and Mom fight over what is happening. He saying that he will take Shadow outside and her saying to "Go Away. I am teaching my son."

She points at Jimmy telling him to Go Away. Jimmy points back her, telling her that he will do it. She grabs the broom and stands up, Jimmy backing off, not wanting to start a physical fight. She starts to grab at him and the fight gets a bit intense.

"Go Away."

"Fine, I won't be moving to Fort Worth with you."

"Fine, I don't care."

"Good."

Jimmy walks back into his room to grab his cane from the pain in his legs. By this time, Alex has come upstairs and gone to Shadow's room, where Mother has returned to her original position.

Jimmy grabs the leash and Alex takes Shadow outside.

After handing Alex the leash, he returns upstairs to get a crate for Shadow to sleep in because it is Windy outside.

Mother has march downstairs, angry and muttering things. She goes to clean up the kitchen, telling Jimmy that she will tell his father about this and that they need to have a talk. She then goes outside to watch Alex leash Shadow where the Aunt is standing in the doorway.

Another fight happens; this time between the Aunt and Mother.

Alex is trying to reason with the mother and tell them this is what they are doing. Mother keeps saying that she will teach Shadow her way. Aunt saying that this is no way to do it, Alex agreeing with her. This goes on for a bit, Aunt and Mother fighting about how the mother doesn't listen to her sons, that they are adults and can do things. Mother says that the Aunt has no right to talk about this because they are not the Aunt's children. She says that she will do this.

To which Alex tells the mother that pointing a stick at him into his small room will mess him up. The Mother disregards him and Alex continues on, this time pointing at Jimmy,

"Look how you fucked [my big brother] up."

The mother turns around and the Aunt steps in again, the fight starting all over. They continue to yell at each other, calling each other names, Grandma comes in now asking them to tell her whats wrong so she can mediate the fight. Standing in between Mom and Aunt, Mom tells Grandma, "If you make her shut up then I will shut up," pointing at Aunt.

The two continue to fight, a fight that has been waiting to happen and has been continuing for a long time. The fight ends with Aunt telling mother that there are other people in this house and that if she wanted to fight with her kids then she should just move to Fort Worth.

Things die down for a bit.

Aunt, Grandma, and Grandpa in the Master Bedroom

Jimmy and Alex back in the Living Room.

Shadow outside in his crate.

The other dogs are in their rooms.

Some time later, mother calls Jimmy and Alex up to talk. Jimmy and Alex enter into Mother's room and close the door for the talk.

Mother starts off by saying that this shouldn't have happened. And crying about how she can't teach her own children.

She calls the doggies her children, that she loves them; why else would she love them and take them home and spend money to get them neutered and such and clean the carpets.

She talks about how Jimmy and Alex turned their backs on her.

When she finishes, Alex begins to talk. She tries to talk, and Alex tells her to let him talk, and that her problem is she doesn't let anyone else talk, and he begins to give his reasons to her.

She stops him again, he tells her that he isn't done talking, to which she replies that she isn't done talking and continues. She even talks about what they did that night, Jimmy's using his index finger to point at her while he was talking to her and Alex's use of the word “fuck.”

Saying that she never hit Shadow, she was only pointing the end of the broom at her. "I'm not doing anything to him."

Jimmy replies that she was doing something to him. She asks him what. Jimmy calmly replies that he will show her an example. Alex telling Jimmy that this isn't a good idea. Jimmy stands up with the aid of his cane and says he is only showing. Alex voices his concern again, Jimmy tells him he has to do this. Mom is sitting in her bed waiting, when Jimmy lifts his cane up and moves forward to put the end of the cane in her face, asking her if she feels uncomfortable.

She says yes but she didn't do anything to him.

Jimmy puts his cane back down and returns to kneeling on the floor.

To which the talk continues.

She begins to cry and play the victim card, which is understandable since she does do a lot to take care of the puppies, especially hand cleaning the carpets with Bleach.

She then says that, it is no life to life if she can't teach her own children.

Jimmy and Alex both say that what they are saying is that she can teach her children, she just did too much.

Shortening the talk from this point: She says she should never have gotten Neiman, the first dog, or Liam. Or any dog because this wouldn't have happened, this fight wouldn't have happened and everyone in the house would be fine. To be clear, she is referring to the fact that Jimmy has stood up to her and her methods of treating the dogs for each and every one of them. But only when she was doing something extreme, the occasional punishment and ones that are truly needed are okay.

There is a moment of long silence.

Mom then says that they are done talking, that she now knows more about her children because of this.

Giving the reasoning that she raised her children a different way than the dogs because they are animals. And that if she did what she did to Shadow to either Jimmy or Alex that she would understand the way they reacted.

She then says that if they, Humans and all Doggies, were on a boat in water and that if began to sink that both Jimmy and Alex would surely go after Shadow before the mother.

She tells them to leave after the talk is over.

Jimmy walks out of the room first and waits in the living room upstairs. Alex goes in to hug the mom. As he walks out, he is serious at Jimmy, telling him. "And you. You were right on some parts but what you did wasn't right," referring to the act where Jimmy pointed his cane at the mother.

Alex goes into the bathroom to wash up and then heads downstairs.

Jimmy still standing in the living room looks into the mother's room and says, "I am sorry," and walks off.

Shadow had been whining so Alex took him back inside and left his crate near the stairs.

Alex and Jimmy can hear their mother talking to their father on the phone, Jimmy holding onto his phone, waiting for the call that should have come for him.

Mother then comes out and tells Alex that the phone is for him now, Alex goes up. Jimmy lies on the floor with his phone in hand waiting for the phone call.

He hears punching and pounding against the wall.

Jimmy starts to head upstairs, the mother leaving the bathroom, with toothbrush in her hand, asking Alex "What is wrong?"

He enters into the bathroom and washes up again. Jimmy begins to ask him something when Alex leaves the bathroom but Alex says before he could start, "Find a friend that will take Shadow."

Mom acts like nothing has happened, Jimmy stands there, and Alex has walked downstairs to spend time with Shadow

Jimmy walks downstairs to his spot again and sits.

"I'm sorry."

"Are you happy with your self-righteous shit?"

Jimmy doesn't reply and watches as Alex goes back to playing with Shadow, crying all the while.