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This is actually hard to write. Mollie has been gone since I held her in my arms as she took her last walk over the Rainbow Bridge on March 27, 2007.Mollie was a beautiful yellow labrador, trained by my sister as a puppy for a man who was married to a selfish non-dog person. (You know, you write these answers knowing that the likelihood of the person in question ever reading your answer is virtually nonexistent, but sometimes you do hope there is a chance.)My sister trains and professionally shows Labrador retrievers. She has for +/- 25 years now. She never turns over a puppy/dog she trains without requesting a client sign her document acknowledging that if, for any reason, said client must rid themselves of the dog, they must return the dog to her. She does this in hopes that if the family situation goes pear shaped -- rather than dump the dog at the pound or at unwilling relatives or unsafe conditions, at least she could guarantee a safe home. Her point is that she will take on the time and expense of rehoming an unwanted dog rather than risk one of her dogs being lost to an unnecessary death.Mollie was her first return.Mollie had belonged to a man who apparently deeply loved and bonded strongly with her. His wife, however, (according to his explanations when he called to make arrangements with my sister) decided to use his love for Mollie as a chess piece in her fights with him, escalating the situation to the point where she required him to make a choice between her, as his wife, or Mollie, the dog.I know how I feel about ultimatums. Your suitcase would have been on my front porch. With a picture of Mollie on top and the locks changed....but it was your marriage. Not mine. His choice. Not mine.We just got to live with the horror of your choice.The poor awful man . I do feel for him to this day. He chose to live with someone that required him to make a choice like that. But his face.And when he drove away...Mollie was fine for a while. Happy, even, because she knew us and our family. And she got to play with our other dogs. Dad was there and when she needed comfort, she went to him for petting.Later that night, Mollie started to sit by the front door.No matter what we did to try to distract her, Mollie sat and stared at the front door.Then, right after midnight or so, it happened. I have never experienced this in an animal and hope never in my lifetime to ever live through this again.Mollie realized her Daddy was not coming back to get her.It. Was. Devastating.Mollie began to cry. This six year old yellow labrador dog began to cry. It sounded like a woman sobbing.It was the most devastating sound I remember, even now.We were horrified. She could not be comforted. She would not move.She wasn’t howling. She wasn’t keening or any of the other noises you’ve heard of a dog making. This was crying. This dog cried.I cannot describe the horror of this sobbing noise coming from a dog.She didn't snap, she didn't bark, she didn't growl, anything that indicated she wanted left alone.She was simply heartbroken. Her person, her pack leader, her world center had left her. Mollie had figured out that he was not coming back for her. Ever.In the end, all we could do for her was to have Dad pull up a chair beside her and stroke her long into the night whilst she stood vigil.I know Mollie's original owner cried when he said goodbye to her. And I can only hope he showed the face that drove away from our house to his wife.No one got sleep that night. About the time that dawn broke, so did Mollie. She had cried, off and on, through the wee hours of the morning. I guess when she saw the grey of the dawn hours, she knew it was over, and she simply slid down at my father's feet.We put Mollie to bed and treated her as if she had been ill. She got special love, special treats, special walks, special everything. Even though she weighed near eighty pounds, we would have Dad sit back in his recliner, and I'd put Mollie in his lap for a while, as long as she would stay. He would just stroke her, like he did that vile night.Even today, the memory makes me cry for her. I would have moved heaven and earth, if only it would have made her stop making that sound. And yet, we couldn't.There was nothing we could do for Mollie that night, but love on her. She had to decide herself if she was going to accept the love we so desperately wanted to give to her.Mollie had to decide herself to trust us after having her heart broken by her person.My parents had a mother-in-law apartment on their property, and not long after this happened (months), I graduated university, and I moved into the apartment. Mollie moved in with me and became mine.She followed me everywhere, even getting to drive everywhere with me. Her favorite thing was horror movie night because I'd pull the blinds, light the candles and get her to snuggle on my hideous turquoise velveteen couch. She always fell asleep with her head on my lap.Mollie was a man's dog, in that she loved me, but when I married my husband, it was very obvious that the center of her world shifted to revolve around him. Knowing what she had lived through, I relinquished my role as her world center (and pack leader) happily and oh so gratefully so as to see her true joy in my husband's love and attention.My Mister adored Mollie for the treasure she was, and let her know she was loved. She just — followed him. We proved this to ourselves once by having him circle our dining table repeatedly. She joyfully followed, tail wagging, as if they were playing follow-the-leader....only her pack leader had gone momentarily soft in the head and she was quite obviously humoring him! They just circled until he grew too dizzy to keep walking.We live in a three story townhouse and Mollie weighed eighty pounds at her passing. However, for the last six to eight months of her life with us, her hips started to hurt her too bad to climb stairs.That never stopped Mollie and my Mister. Mollie could easily go down the stairs but coming up hurt. She quickly learned that a tiny little "wuffle" (which, by our definition, is not quite a woof nor not quite a muffled bark. It was her answer to “Mollie, speak.”) would bring Daddy running. My Mister picked up Mollie, one arm under each set of legs, her head held high and carried his furbaby upstairs as many times as she asked each day/night.But this is how some sensitive dogs can respond to what they see as rejection.When we lived in London, Mollie (who, as a labrador, believed she was an omnivore) ate ivy. For those that don't know, ivy leaves are deadly for dogs.To tell you how amazing this vet was, I called on the weekend, and described what Mollie had thrown back up because— as a dog owner — it was unusual. He gave me the usual speech you hear as a lab owner, told me to bring her in Monday and hung up. Not five minutes later, my phone rang back and his voice was asking, “ this is the vet you just rang. I’m sorry, did you say you say you saw an ivy leaf in her sick?” When I confirmed, he told me their office was locked, but to get a cab and bring her into the office that very moment, as he was there and would unlock the door.We rushed Mollie to the vet and he was phenomenal. Miraculous, even, because we were losing my baby. He fought for her like a demon. Her organs were slowly going into failure one by one, which, for some professionals, can be the death knell and they give up.Not this guy. Mollie apparently reacted poorly to the blood supply they had available from their medical supply company, so this gentleman brought in his own dog and gave Mollie a transfusion from his own furbaby.(By way of personal recommendation, this guy was just above and beyond. We lived in the Belsize Park neighborhood, so he worked at the Village Vet on Belsize Terrace. If anyone needs a vet, it took a week, but he literally saved Mollie from death by using his own dog for a transfusion. I doubt he would forget the story if you ask him to tell. He should be proud of his work. I'll be forever grateful!)It worked. Finally, Mollie started to improve. But here's where it lead to something weird and the danger of sensitive dogs and rejection.Mollie was in the vet’s back office for a week. Because it was so touch and go (and, probably because as the panicking dog mom, I was always underfoot waiting in their office) they asked us to come visit after hours when the office closed for the day. Every day at 5 pm on the dot we scurried up there and sat on the floor with her, holding her as best we could for an hour whilst they cleaned their offices, then each night we told her we would see her again tomorrow.Every day the news got worse and worse, each night thinking it might be our last with her, until Thursday's all out battle. The vet called to tell us about the new transfusions and that he thought, finally, he was winning.Vet told us that whilst Mollie was finally improving, and her organs were no longer failing, he thought that she would be greatly improved by getting extended rest that night. He told us specifically to skip our visit and come the next day instead.If we only knew.The phone rang at 11:30 that night. It was the vet. He was very succinct. He simply told us that he did not understand why yet, but Mollie took a turn for the worse, he didn't expect her to make the night and if we wanted to say goodbye, we needed to get a cab now.We did.We rushed into the clinic. I think I was actually still partially in my pajamas under my sweater. I just remember throwing myself on the floor next to Mollie's cage and gathering up her head on my lap, asking her if she would be willing to stay with us a bit longer if she could.My husband sat next to me holding Mollie and the next thing we remember was the vet exclaiming in ...shock, really, "she's getting stronger," as if he couldn't believe it.We held Mollie together and watched her wag her tail, and as the vet sat back, we told him her history re: above. The three of us decided then, and I believe to this day, Mollie had learned to expect us that week she almost died every day at five o'clock.The day we did not come at five o'clock (or at all), she must have decided that we gave up, so she did too. It wasn't until we physically held her that day that she knew we were still there for her.We had just made the insufferable error of being late.We never made that mistake with Mollie again in her lifetime. We never broke her trust again.The trust of an animal is such a fragile thing.With another person, you can speak a common language and explain why you make the decisions you have to make in life.With animals, your common language IS trust. Their trust in you.Taking in an animal as a family member is an act of trust. It is an act of trust on their part.Family animal members hand you their heart on a platter and all they ask is that you keep them safe, healthy and above all - most of all - loved.If you cannot fulfill that animal's trust in you, then yes. Yes, absolutely let someone else fulfill their trust.In retrospect, if it sounds like I’m being hard or negative, I’m not. I am really not. That is not my intention. There is a reason why my sister made that compact with people who took her dogs.Life happens. We aren’t always prepared for what life hands us (and who could be?!), and because of that, we have to adjust our circumstances to the best of our ability.I would be happy to tell you about very successfully taking in Cheyenne, my little Monkey. (Everyone gets a nickname. Cheyenne became CheeChee which became Monkey. Everyone. Mollie was Miss MollyLolly. Weird things happen in animal families.)She was a beautiful white long hair Chihuahua puppy mill breeder rescue, from another family (my husband’s fraternity brother) where she just did not fit. She came to live with us, found her fit with her new fur brother and sister and passed over the Rainbow Bridge much sooner than we wanted but much happier than anyone would have imagined possible, given her start in life.This answer, however, is long enough already.Just know that your dog trusts you to do what is in their best interest, with their whole heart. Keeping that in mind, anything can work out right.If you are making decisions in your dog’s best interests, I’ve found that they always seem to know - and understand.I've tried to add a photo of my Miss MollieLollie the first Christmas after we married. She's happily gnawing on her Christmas present of a big ol' dog bone, after helping her Daddy unwrap it. Apparently, the Quora app dislikes me enough to refuse me. I'm quite sure it has nothing to do with a baseline application illiteracy on my part…absolutely nothing at all.

In 2008 my parents lost their home. We had two dogs a Boxer, and a Boxer mix. They desperately looked for a rental situation, but having the dogs kept getting in their way. They could’ve dumped them at a shelter or re-homed them. However, my parents loved the dogs, and they were our family. My Mom wrote out a detailed letter explaining our situation, and why we needed to keep our dogs. She added it to every rental application. Thankfully someone finally agreed, and we ended up in a house on the same street. I have worked in the Veterinarian field for a long time, and I hear this often. My first thought is where there’s a will there’s a way. Second, a dog isn’t an old piece of furniture that you can leave on a curb or give away when things change. They’re like children. You wouldn’t take your kid to an orphanage, because moving them is hard. Dogs are a 15 year commitment (give or take), and if you aren’t willing the make that commitment you shouldn’t have one. If you’re dead set on abandoning him try networking through friends/family, rescues, and then shelter. I hope he finds a wonderful lifetime fur ever home with committed owners. Before you get another pet to replace him think long and hard if you’re prepared to make an appropriate commitment to it.

I have raised two children to adulthood and also I have had many dogs and volunteered at shelters, and as part of my basic training as a biologist (before I went into genomics as my specialization), I studied animal behavior in college. I'm very attached to my dogs (I have two rescued pit bulls at the moment), but I don't treat them like I would treat humans, because they have specific needs due to their biology, and the way their minds work, even though both of our species are social and live in a family structure, is not the same as a human mind. Likewise, I didn't educate my children like I trained my dogs. I raised my children to think for themselves, which is not something applicable to dogs. I raised my children to question authority, which is not something I would ever want to do with my dogs, I really want my dogs to consider me their mom but also their pack leader. You are not training your dogs to be independent, but children should be raised to be independent (age-appropriate degrees of independence, of course). My dogs are happiest when they are with me. I raised my children to be happy when we weren't around, also, at school, with friends, with other relatives, etc. We raised our children to gradually want to be away from mom and dad. We raised our children to constantly test their boundaries, because this is a useful skill later in life.There are too many differences between the minds of dogs and those of children, even young children, so I can understand why people would react negatively to you saying that you can't see the difference between raising children and training dogs. My children weren't the best behaved perhaps, but there is more to life and to be prepared for its challenges than simply "good behavior". They are now grown young men and I'm happy to report that they are great guys, truly good people, smart, friendly and engaging, and they are very well liked by their peers and by the "grown-ups" that work with them.