AITAH for telling my friends GF that my dog would eat me if I died?

A ranch hand (gender unspecified) sparked tension with a friend’s girlfriend over differing views on animals. The girlfriend criticized their involvement in ranching and rodeo culture, labeling it as cruel, and expressed concerns about her own Blue Heeler puppy’s behavior.

The ranch hand suggested the puppy needed tasks and training due to its working dog instincts, which escalated into a heated debate. When the girlfriend claimed the ranch hand’s dog secretly hated them and would eat them if they died,

they replied, “Yes, and I’d want him to,” explaining it’s natural survival behavior for animals. Now the girlfriend is upset, refusing to interact until an apology is given. read the original story below…

‘ AITAH for telling my friends GF that my dog would eat me if I died ?’

I live and work as a ranch hand. I am constantly around Rodeo stock cattle, horses, donkeys, and most importantly working dogs. We also raise our own animals to process for meat. So I have a slightly different perspective on animals after seeing this side of them, not just the cute house cats and lazy pet dogs.

Well my friends GF (22 I think?) Was going on and on about how her blue heeler puppy was tearing things up and misbehaving. I tried to tell her that healers are working dogs that need to be given tasks and that her puppy is only 6 months old so it’s bound to misbehave.

But apparently that was rude and she started a whole argument about how I’m a bad person for raising animals to eat and that I have to be cruel to take part in rodeo culture. Now I know that factories are awful places and that some people don’t take care of their stick.

Clearly I am not one of those people, our animals have almost 300 acres of pasture land, get fed every day, get hay weekly, water troughs etcetc. It devolved into this whole debate about how some animals are crested with a purpose LIKE HEELERS.

that poor puppy is probably bored out of its mind in a small 1 bedroom apartment and I told her it was gonna go kennel-dumb if she didn’t train it. I started telling her about my personal dog and how I was able to get him trained. His is a working dog, he’s very well behaved,

he does fun little tricks for snacks and is weirdly offended by me talking on the phone. None of this is signs of abuse! But she insisted that my dog hated me secretly and would eat me if I died.. Which…. yeah? I told her he would! If I died and he was locked in the house with no food or water I’d want him to!

But I guess that was the wrong thing to say or I said it rude? I didn’t think I was mean about it I was just genuinely baffled that she said that. That’s the way things work, animals will always choose their survival over their affection.

But now she’s telling my friend that she won’t come around me until I apologize and I don’t know if that was cruel. So, AITAH?

Here’s what the community had to contribute:

k23_k23 −  NTA “But now she’s telling my friend that she won’t come around me until I apologize” .. why would you apologize, knowing that would makle her come back? Enjoy her absence.

DinaFelice −  Reading the title, I thought this was a case where you brought up a “fun fact” out of the blue and didn’t realize that it is generally considered rude to bring up m**bid topics if the others around you didn’t consent to having that kind of conversation. But she literally brought it up.

You just confirmed that it is a true fact. And look, in general, it’s not super polite to criticize how someone is raising their pets or their children unless they are asking for advice. But in this case, it sounds like you genuinely believed that you had access to information that she was unaware of,

and you believed sharing that information might help her and another living creature. It’s possible that your delivery was less than ideal, but it’s a valid thing to point out. And even if your delivery was extremely harsh and crossed over the line in being an AH (which I highly doubt),

her response was to continue to escalate by AH-ishly insulting who you are as a person. NTA. I’m not even sure what a genuine apology would look like in this case…”I’m sorry for agreeing with you about what dogs do after their owners die”?

Honestly, your friend is better off keeping some distance between you and the GF if he intends to keep both of you in his life. Personally, I’d be willing to do a semi-apology to keep the peace (e.g., “Sorry things got heated the other day.

Let’s agree to avoid topics like my job and your pet. How about this weather we’ve been having?”), but you’re not an AH if you aren’t willing to do that

crocodilezebramilk −  NTA, people who get working breeds only to complain about them are idiots in my opinion, you’re getting a high energy dog who was literally meant and bred to work and you’re depriving them of any enrichment, it’s cruel.

D**g sniffing dogs aren’t in the same ballpark as farm dogs, but my cousin had one before and he went through all the expensive bells and whistles training for it… Only for the girl to fly off the rails cause she was brought home to be an ordinary house pet.

She’d snap off occasionally and would go after anyone who happened to have their prescription meds on them, and she was very very very drawn to the clinic (small small village). It took my bonehead cousin months to rehome the poor girl,

and sadly – I was the only one capable of babysitting her cause she was bat crap crazy, and it made me crazy so I’d make a game out of hiding my dads prescription for her to find around the house. Never. Get. Working. Breeds. Unless. You’re. Up. To. Task. Also – my small terrier would also eat me if I died, she’d cry her eyes out first and then dig in.

PurpleStar1965 −  NTA I have cats. I know they would eat me if I died.. Facts are facts.

lemissa11 −  NTA and it’s true. I work in an animal shelter and have experienced this first hand when an owner has passed. It’s never the first thing they do or try to do, but eventually it does happen because they know they need food to live.

It doesn’t make them bad dogs, they’re animals. I’ve adopted these dogs out because they’re good normal dogs that did a normal animal thing in a time of crisis.

blizzardlizard666 −  Im a vegetarian and she sounds a bit dumb. Having a heeler in an apartment is so bad. And not realising they will cause destruction is just selfish

AnonAnontheAnony −  NTA – maybe wierd, but that kind of ‘fact’ is a common observation and doesn’t really rise to the level of being an a**hole.

GSD_enthusiast −  Would it be helpful if you pointed out that her dog would eat her,  too, if she died 😇😇. NTA at all

Mother-Classic-9637 −  NTA – you tried to help her, she got offended, and then further disliked a fact you told her.

RndmIntrntStranger −  NTA. I have absolutely zero sympathy for people who get a breed that is diametrically opposite to their own lifestyle bc “I hAd ThIs BrEeD wHeN i WaS a KiD!!!” or “I aLwAyS wAnTeD tHiS bReEd!!!”

No. If someone does not have the room or time to give to a dog that’s been bred to be a working dog, then they should not get a working dog breed. THAT’S cruelty to the dog.

Was the ranch hand simply stating facts, or did they cross a line with their blunt response? What do you think? Share your thoughts below!