My Wife and I Agreed to Temporarily Take in Her Sister’s Dog. Now I Want to Do Something “Cruel.”

Care and Feeding Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by GlobalP /Getty Images Plus. Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. Care and Feeding is Slate’s parenting advice column. Have a question for Care and Feeding? Submit it here. Dear Care and Feeding, My wife “Naya” and I agreed to temporarily take her sister “Annie’s” dog when she went through her divorce because the only place she could afford didn’t allow pets. The plan was for her to save up for a place that would, which she assured us would take no more than four months. It’s now been a year and a half. Legal fees and living expenses have made it impossible for Annie to save for a pet-friendly rental. Naya and I have been covering all the dog’s expenses (food, vet bills, grooming, etc.), and the dog has become attached to us. I understand Annie’s financial situation, but I think it’s time to give her a deadline to either find housing that allows her to have a dog or to turn ownership of him over to us, since we’ve been paying for everything all this time anyway. Naya says the idea of doing that is “cruel.” Haven’t we given her sister long enough? —Dog in Ownership Limbo Dear Dog in Ownership Limbo, What difference would ownership make in this case? You’re already covering all of the related expenses. Are there decisions you’d like to have the freedom to make for the dog? I can’t see that being the case since you’ve also been taking care of things like grooming. You are determining the vet that takes care of the dog, how the dog is groomed, what food it eats, and everything else. Your sister-in-law has become really just an owner in name only. Plus, if she loves her dog, as I’m assuming she does since she asked you to take care of it, it’s likely that if she gives up on finding pet-friendly living accommodation, she’ll ask you to keep it anyway. So, just sit back and wait. There’s no need to worry over terminology. The dog has been pretty much yours for a while, and if your sister-in-law does eventually want her dog back, well, you’ll have to give it to her. But it sounds like she’d probably also be open to some sort of arrangement to allow you to spend time with Fido since such a strong bond has formed. Work it out together. Please keep questions short (<150 words), and don‘t submit the same question to multiple columns. We are unable to edit or remove questions after publication. Use pseudonyms to maintain anonymity. Your submission may be used in other Slate advice columns and may be edited for publication. Dear Care and Feeding, My dad refuses to get hearing aids. He’s almost 72 and has become really hard of hearing over the last several years. I don’t live near him, but it’s driving my mom crazy. Even his friends, who all have hearing aids, have said something to both him and my mom about it. When we talk on the phone, it’s obvious he can’t understand everything I’m saying. When I do see him in person, it’s obvious that it affects his life. For example, at a restaurant, he can’t follow the conversation at the table and will butt in with random comments at random times and doesn’t respond appropriately to questions from the waiter. Oftentimes he just says yes, agreeing to something he doesn’t want to order because he can’t hear. I worry about his safety because he can’t even hear that loud, annoying beep the fire detector makes when its battery is dying. He gets angry any time someone suggests hearing aids, even his closest friends. My mom has tried showing him studies on the effects on the brain when you lose your hearing, reminding him how he stopped calling my grandma until she got hearing aids because he got so frustrated, and suggesting they both get their hearing checked (even though she already does this regularly without him). I know he’s probably struggling with getting older and feeling less independent, but is there anything else we can do? —Trying to Help Dear Trying to Help, Aging is so complicated. It’s hard to fight to keep our physical and mental health in check when it feels as if parts of us—like our hearing—won’t ever be how they used to be, despite our best efforts. It can be a tough pill to swallow, one that our family and friends can’t push us to take. So, while your efforts are admirable, it’s like my grandma used to say: You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. You can’t make your dad go to therapy, you can’t make him think differently about what aging can be, and you can’t make him get his hearing checked. Your mom is taking the best course of action by normalizing these kinds of doctor check-ups. But I’m guessing your dad is already suspicious of her offer to go together if everyone has been pushing him to get hearing aids for a while. Your dad is going to have to arrive at the decision to get help himself. What will be helpful, though, is creating a non-judgmental environment where he knows he won’t hear an “I told you so” or “You should have gone a long time ago” when he is finally ready. Sometimes, we put things off even longer because we worry about the responses from our loved ones. It can become another task, another thing on the to-do list of items we already don’t want to deal with. So continue to be there for him and be ready for supportive conversations whenever he is. But remember, he has to take the lead on his own health and his own life. —Arionne More Advice From Slate My 14-year-old daughter is babysitting this summer for a few families in the neighborhood. A family that has a backyard pool has reached out to her as well, and she would like to babysit for them. They seem like nice people and normally I would say yes, but their kids are young (pre-swimming age), and I’m not comfortable with my daughter being responsible for their safety with the pool… Advice Family Kids Parenting