Tell me NO--I am nuts! :)

[valmom]

My one animal rule when my kids were home was that EVERY animal in the house (or the barn!) was mine. NOt theirs. They could play with it, ride it, train it, sleep with it in the bed, but I wasn't getting into the "it's your pet take care of it". Every animal I was willing to have was going to be my responsibility. So, I could say NO to (almost) anything I didn't want.

OK, my son did get my daughter a ferret for her birthday without consulting. But it turned out to be the most adorably funny pet ever!

If you don't want an indoor dog, don't get one. Period. When your daughter grows up she can get a dog herself.

 

[2dream]

My one animal rule when my kids were home was that EVERY animal in the house (or the barn!) was mine. NOt theirs. They could play with it, ride it, train it, sleep with it in the bed, but I wasn't getting into the "it's your pet take care of it". Every animal I was willing to have was going to be my responsibility. So, I could say NO to (almost) anything I didn't want.

If you don't want an indoor dog, don't get one. Period. When your daughter grows up she can get a dog herself.

Thats a good one. When my kids were at home every animal was OURS. And required complete family agreement. Like you I did not want to get into the "Its your pet" or hear, "It's not my pet, why do I have to do that". But when complete and total family agreement is required I still had VETO power.

FC - Did you say NEW leather couch? If you get an inside dog, you better take a real deep breath and count to about a 100 because I don't think counting to 10 is going to be long enough to stop you from killing that dog.

The garage/fenced yard sounds like a good plan though. But 5 is still very young. Which means you will still be stuck with most of the work, training, cleaning up after, making sure there is food and water, etc.

If she is persistant, do a test. Give her a goat, all her own, make it her responsibility, totally. Food, grooming, milking, etc. If its sick, she has to take care of it. All with your guidance of course. Let her do that for at least 6 months. Rain, sleet, snow....Her goat, her job. If she can't do that for 6 months with your help, she can't have a dog. That gets you off the hook for right now too.