Dog Owner Applauded for 'Prioritizing' Husky Over Younger Brother

A dog owner who chose to prioritize getting a husky over helping out his allergic younger brother has been widely praised online.

In a Reddit post shared under the handle u/Maleficent_Bowl_7496, the dog owner said his family recently got in touch to ask if it would be OK for his younger brother to live with him while going to college.

The only problem was that the brother is "very allergic to dogs" and the poster had recently purchased a dog. "His name is Bradford and he is a husky. My dream dog," u/Maleficent_Bowl_7496 wrote.

As a result, he has been branded "irresponsible" by the rest of the family, who are now urging him to "get rid" of Bradford so his brother can move in. "They said that they had helped me out through school hoping I would help them out when it was my brother's turn," u/Maleficent_Bowl_7496 wrote.

Despite this, the poster said he is "not interested" in hearing his family's complaints and insists that Bradford is going nowhere: "I waited 26 years to get a dog and he's not going anywhere."

His response and apparent lack of empathy for the younger brother's plight have generated anger within the family, who say the poster is "prioritizing" the dog over his sibling. But it may be more complicated than that.

A 2017 study published in Society and Animals looked at empathy. Participants were asked to respond to different fake newspaper stories about a person being severely assaulted with a baseball bat. In each story, all of the details were the same except for the identity of the victim.

As part of the test, the victim was a baby, an adult, a 6-year-old dog or a puppy. The results showed that the respondents had higher levels of empathy when the victim was a baby, a puppy and an adult dog, in that order, but significantly less when an adult was involved.

The researchers concluded that empathy is tied to a perception of helplessness and vulnerability. That appears to be the case for u/Maleficent_Bowl_7496, who, while not entirely unsympathetic to his brother, no longer wanted to hold off buying a dog since moving hundreds of miles away from his family.

"I have wanted one all my life but we couldn't have one because it would be bad for him [the brother]," the poster wrote. "I never held this against him. I understood that it was a medical thing and that it would be stupid to risk his health just for me to get a dog."

The poster also accused the family of blindsiding him by asking if his brother could come live with him. "It probably would have been a good idea to let me know they were planning on that since they do not own my home," the poster wrote.

He has stopped taking calls from his parents and is refusing to back down. It's an approach that has won plenty of support, not least from Ivan Petersel, a dog trainer and the founder of Dog Wizardry, who addressed u/Maleficent_Bowl_7496 directly.

"Your family sees it as 'a dog,' but the husky represents part of your new life and independence," he told Newsweek. "Understandably, you don't want to feel compromised while you're building a life on your terms."

He accused the family of making "an assumption with unrealistic expectations" when it asked if the younger brother could move in. "If you knew in advance, you could have gotten a hypoallergenic dog as a compromise," Petersel said. "However, there are no 100 percent hypoallergenic dogs."

He continued: "Ask them when you are allowed to grow up. Are you supposed to wait until age 52 to get a dog without permission? This sounds absurd, and the only way that I would cave in would be if your brother is homeless otherwise."

Ultimately, Petersel said, there is no reason to get rid of Bradford, and he hopes the conflict ends up providing a "teachable" moment for all involved.

Others on Reddit were more blunt in their responses. One commenter said: "You are not prioritizing your dog over your brother. You are prioritizing your OWN LIFE."

A second wrote: "Even if he was prioritizing his dog over his brother, so what? It is his house. He pays the bills."

Another commenter said: "They don't get to dictate how you want to live and it's def not your responsibility to support your brother."

Newsweek could not verify the details of the case and reached out to u/Maleficent_Bowl_7496 for comment.

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