I Dumped My Partner For Disrespecting My Dog (Best Decision Ever)

As I write this, my favourite male is snoozing next to me. I gaze at him lovingly and reach over to stroke the hair on his head. Despite the fact he snores all night and demands breakfast at 6.30am most mornings, there isn’t much I wouldn’t do for him. I cup his face in one hand and gently pluck a string of gloop from his big brown eye with the other. His name is Snacks, and he is a Pug (my other favourite male, Sausage the Chihuahua, is chomping on a hard chew at the end of the bed).

Yes, the dogs sleep on the bed, and no, I wouldn’t change this arrangement for a partner. I’m far from alone in this: a recent survey by dog toy company Tug-E-Nuff in conjunction with OnePoll found that one in ten dog parents in the UK have ended a relationship because their dog didn’t approve of their partner. More than half (55 percent) of pet parents say it’s important that a partner gets along with their dog, while 47 percent say it’s crucial they get along with all dogs.

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Thankfully, my current partner is on board with being the third-favourite man in my life, but it took a while to find him. In fact, many potential suitors didn’t make it past the dating stage, purely because of their differing opinions on where dogs fit into the relationship. Sometimes, it was obvious by date one that it would be a non-starter, like the woman who told me pretty early on that she had two indoor cats. Neither of my dogs are cat fans, so clearly that wasn’t going to work. You’d think that being bi would open my dating pool to twice as many pet lovers, but honestly, it didn’t make my love life any easier.

Then there was the guy who, when I said I didn’t want to travel to the opposite end of London for a date because the travel time would mean the dogs would be alone too long, said “Oh, does that matter?” Yes, Kevin, it matters! Frankly, not wanting to travel to the other side of the city is a reasonable boundary regardless of pet parent status, so that was a bullet dodged.

Dog compatibility in dating

Thankfully, I’m not being overly picky – dog compatibility really is a modern dating dealbreaker. According to the survey, younger people are especially likely to act on their dog’s instincts, with those aged 18 to 34 six times more likely to end a relationship if their dog doesn’t approve. Londoners are particularly ruthless, with a fifth saying they’d call it quits under those circumstances, compared to one in ten elsewhere in the UK.

But what about the more complicated situation of meeting someone you get on with, having a few dates, then discovering they hold some unfavourable opinions about your pets? Surely that can be worked through, as long as the opinions don’t extend to unreasonable lengths like, I don’t know, keeping the dogs out of the bedroom? I don’t think so, personally. Even the most innocuous comments could hint at something bigger, and be the first indicator of pet-based resentment. What’s that line from BoJack Horseman? “Red flags are the things you can’t see when you’ve got rose-tinted glasses on.” Or something. When it comes to my dogs, the glasses are firmly off.

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The man who was rude to my dog

And so we come to the story of Alan – we’ll call him that, for that was his name. We’d had a couple of successful dates where we seemed aligned in humour, taste and worldview. I’d even brought the dogs along to one of the dates and all seemed to go well. The next time we met up, I felt like things were promising enough to invite him back to my flat to watch Queer Eye (not a euphemism, we really did watch Queer Eye). Next to each other on the sofa, knees edging closer as Jonathan Van Ness and the squad restyled a Texan cowboy who hadn’t washed his hair for a month, I felt the excitement of the moment building. And then, flump. A warm, furry loaf settled himself between us – Snacks, who was weary of men due to his previous family, seemingly accepted the presence of Alan by joining us on the sofa.

I was elated. The fact Snacks wasn’t eyeballing Alan suspiciously from across the room gave me hope that Snacks had picked up on some deep, decent vibes. But just seconds later, Alan crushed my hopes with just three words: “God, you’re ugly.”

He wasn’t talking to me, of course, but Snacks. I shot up out of my seat. “Don’t talk to him like that!” I exclaimed. “I think you should leave.” At first he wondered if I was joking, but I was deadly serious. Nobody is rude to Snacks on my watch. The next day, I messaged Alan to end our short-lived fling, citing the “ugly” comment and a few other incompatibilities, which suddenly seemed like a lot more of a problem. I mean, if you were dating an artist, would you call their paintings ugly? If you were dating a parent, would you call their child ugly? Just because I didn’t create Snacks myself either with artistic media or my uterus, doesn’t mean I feel any less protective over him.

I saw it all play out in my head – one day it’s a passing comment, further down the line Snacks is too “ugly” to sleep in the bedroom with us. His snoring is too loud, his pestering for food is too annoying. Yes, he can be annoying, but so can we all and, when I got my dogs, I made a commitment to them for life. I wasn’t looking for someone who was willing to merely tolerate my dogs – I wanted someone who wanted, if and when things got serious, to be as enthusiastic a dog parent as I am.

I decided this (and some other dealbreakers, like the fact I don’t want kids and would quite like to leave the country) needed ironing out at the very start. On my first date with my now-partner Henry, I laid everything on the line. “I don’t want kids, I don’t want to live in the UK forever, oh, and the dogs sleep on the bed and that isn’t changing,” I said. Henry smiled and told me that all sounded fine to him. Nearly four years later, he’s wholly and enthusiastically stepped into the role of dog dad.

There was the time Henry got a little too tipsy and cried about how much he loves them. But more than that, it’s the little, everyday things. We share the 6.30am breakfast duty, and he removes Snacks’ eye gloops as readily as I do. Sausage even now prefers Henry to me, which I’m only a little bit salty about.

I don’t regret dumping the guy who didn’t like my dog – if I hadn’t, I’d never have met someone who loves them as much as I do.