Alright, well reddit helped me a lot last time, maybe you guys can do it again.

Long story short, 2 months ago I took my dog Colby to the vet after he was acting weird. The vet determined the dog may have been sodomized. After a lot of thought, I checked the browser history on my sons computer and found he had been viewing pictures of bestiality and seemed to be active in a forum about it. I confronted him and he admitted to sodomizing our dog with the handle of a hairbrush and his fingers.

After asking reddit for help, I decided to put him in therapy and not let my wife know about the issue and tell her he just wanted to talk to somebody professionally.

Well this morning I caught my son in the backyard holding onto Colby’s genitals while playing tug of war with him. Granted this isn’t sodomization and the dog seemed to be ok, but my son was basically grabbing and massaging the dogs privates as he held him in place under the guise of a tug of war game.

Obviously I stormed outside and grabbed him in anger and we had a VERY serious and angry talk. He had promised me to never treat the dog in any remotely inappropriate way after our last incident. I put him in his room for the rest of the day. My wife is still at work, and I do not know what to do. I am at my wits end. Apparently, therapy has not been working.

Reddit? How do I deal with this? I think I have to tell my wife now, which is not exciting since she has been in the dark about the sodomizing incident for 2 months. I… am not sure how to deal with all of this.

You guys really helped me last time, any advice is appreciated! Thank you!

TL;DR - My son molested our dog Colby again, not sure what to do.

UPDATE Ok, well that didn’t go so well. My wife got home not too long after I put this up. I told her pretty much right off the bat that I messed up pretty bad and that I found out 2 months ago that our son had admitted to me he sodomized the dog with a hairbrush handle and his fingers. I told her that this was why I had wanted him in therapy and that he wasn’t comfortable with her knowing and I made him a fatherly promise under the condition he never do anything like that again.

Needless to say she was pretty shocked and upset. Then I told her what I saw today and she got even more upset. It went from a few minutes of anger to tears. She is pretty pissed off at me and pretty upset about our son and Colby, obviously. I feel like shit at this point for having kept her in the dark. She told me she felt very betrayed and after calling me some choice names and saying she was confused she grabbed her purse and just left the house. I have no idea where she went, but I didn’t try to stop her. She was very, very upset. I feel like the worst husband/father in the world right now.

I went in to speak to my son and he was pretty unhappy too since he could hear everything (obviously was in no hurry to come out of his room for that). He isn’t very happy that I told his mom about today and the incident before but after speaking with him briefly I think he understands that it was necessary.

So basically my family was torn apart today over a dog. I need a beer or something. As for re-housing the dog, I suspect we’ll probably have to do that, but there’s a lot we need to sort through first. I’m sure there is an uncomfortable family meeting in our future. Thanks for the advice and for being there reddit.

UPDATE 2 Wow… front page. Thanks for the outpouring of support. I hope nobody I know is a redditor… didn’t quite expect this to get so big, hahaha. Well, anyways, my wife is still gone. I tried to call her on her cell just one time and she didn’t pick up, so I got the message. I’ve just been in the yard with Colby on the computer having a beer. This is crazy. I wish fatherhood/marriage came with a guidebook. I guess reddit is kind of close, right? Well except for the odd people saying “re-home the son” and all of those super… helpful… suggestions. I’ll keep you updated as the night goes on. Hopefully my wife actually does return at some point.

As for my son, all he’s done is make a hotpocket and go back to his room. Basically just being a teenager in trouble.

EDIT - Since a lot of you are curious, my son is 15 years old. I posted this in a comment in the original thread, I thought I had included it in the main post but I realize I did not. Hope that helps.

Update 3 - Ok, well, my wife called me to say she is staying at her sisters house tonight to clear her head. She has calmed down a bit but said she doesn’t think she can handle all of this tonight. I said I understood and apologized again profusely for not telling her sooner. I tried to explain what another redditor mentioned about how the first incident was a weird male adolescent sexual thing and he was embarrassed and thought he could confide in me and trust me.

She was pretty unmoved by that argument and thinks I should’ve told her. I guess i was wrong. When we got off the phone I said “I love you” and she just hung up. This is probably up there as my worst day in recent memory, at least since the day I found out my son sodomized my dog the first time. As for my son, I have seen no sign of him since he made his hotpocket, however for about 40 minutes now I’ve been hearing what I am guessing is ‘dubstep’ coming from his room. I don’t know. I’m too old to even want to know.

Colby will sleep in my room tonight, and tomorrow hopefully the wife will be calm enough to discuss what to do with him. She loves that dog a lot, I am not sure how she is going to want to move forward with all of this. For my part, I can already think of 2 families we know that would probably be happy to take the Colbster.

Jesus what a day. Thanks reddit.

A lot of Redditors were very supportive and helpful with this delicate situation, and I received many letters offering to take in our dog Colby after the second incident, it was really touching to have so many people reach out.

I have also gotten a lot of messages asking for an update on what has happened since the last post. Well, a hell of a lot has happened to my family since then, and none of it has been very good. Basically after hiding the first incident from my wife, I felt obligated to tell her about it when I caught my son sexually abusing Colby again. Turns out not telling her the first time around was probably the worst decision I have ever made.

My wife did not take the news well at all. As I mentioned in my last post, she left the house to stay with her sister for a few days, and wouldn’t pick up my calls. The breach of trust and the fact that I hid something so serious from her really pissed her off. To be honest, our marriage has already been pretty rocky the last year or two, for reasons I’d prefer not to get into. So this was just one more bump in the road that our relationship really didn’t need.

To be fair, I was only trying to be a good father to my son, and I thought I could keep the initial incident between him and I to protect him from further humiliation. It would have been ok if he had kept his word that he would not abuse the dog ever again, unfortunately he did not and I had to involve his mom. Admittedly, I should have just done that from the beginning.

So after staying at her sisters house for a few days my wife came home and we got into several arguments over the next week or so about our son and what to do about this, and of course there was plenty of me being painted as the bad guy for not including her on a major parenting issue.

I decided to take Reddits advice that we should start looking for a new home for Colby, since he obviously wasn’t going to be safe with us anymore. My wife did not like this idea, and after several more arguments I come to find out that she suspects our son never even abused the dog to begin with. She tells me that she has spoken to our son about it and he denied ever doing anything.

So basically I had my son denying he ever sodomized the dog, and my wife now pissed off because she is hearing two conflicting stories from us. She even brought up in the heat of our argument that she thinks if anything I sodomized the dog, which as you can imagine made me absolutely furious.

So to make a long story short, we did not resolve anything, and have only become more embittered with eachother. This, along with a few other marital issues, finally led to my wife asking for a trial separation about 3 weeks ago. My son has decided to live with her, and so I have moved out to a friends house temporarily while I try to figure out what we are going to do next.

I know you guys are probably going to be pissed about this, but Colby is still living with my wife and son, I tried to take him with me but this only lead to more friction and infuriating jabs from my wife (“why so you can sodomize him again and blame it on your son you sick fuck” etc etc).

This whole thing has just become a complete nightmare. I have tried to confront my son about denying what he did to his mom and he won’t even talk to me and has just started taking the stance that I’m crazy. I guess he thought he saw a way out of all of this and decided to just throw his dad under the bus. That is probably the most hurtful part of this entire ordeal, to be honest. I’m used to having my wife be a complete bitch to me at this point but the betrayal by my son who I was only trying to help is like a knife in my heart.

That being said, I have to remind myself he is just a kid in an awkward situation, and try not to hold it against him. After all if my wife and I wind up with a divorce down the road he is going to be the only thing I love, so I am trying not to do irreparable damage to our relationship. I feel like I’ve done enough damage to this family. And all of this over a goddamn Labrador.

I wish I could say my priority at this time was still on Colby’s safety, but I would be lying. My relationship with my family is in tatters and I don’t know what to do to fix it. Obviously I would still like to see Colby rehomed as well, but I feel like I need to focus on fixing my relationship with my wife and son so my life can go back to normal.

So Reddit, I know this is kind of a unique situation but I’m sure theres got to be some of you out there who have had something similar happen to you. Any advice for a dad who is losing control?

TL;DR - My wife has decided to separate from me, and she took the dog and my son. Feel like I’m losing control of my life and it’s all because I tried to help my son after he sexually abused our dog.

To put a long story short, I discovered my teenaged son had sexually abused our family dog, Colby, with a hairbrush and his fingers a few months ago. After I confronted him about it, he confessed, and promised never to do it again, and in return I agreed to keep it between him and I and not tell his mom.

A while later, I discovered my son reneged on his promise to me, and had abused the dog again. This time I felt I had to bring my wife into the matter, and when I told her, it all blew up in my face. She couldn’t believe her son would do that sort of a thing, and she eventually got it into her head somehow that it must have been ME that abused the dog. A short while after telling her about these incidents, we separated, and she wound up with the dog and my son, who when confronted went back and denied that he had ever done anything to the dog, despite admitting to me that he had (and me actually catching him in the act a different time).

So the last time I updated, I had been living at a friends house while my wife and son (and Colby) stayed at the family house. My wife was somehow convinced that I was the abused of our dog and that I was blaming it on my son (which is maybe the most confusing and infuriating feeling I have ever had).

I tried calling my son for several days in hope that I could convince him to come clean and help get us on the road to fixing our family. He did not pick up nor did he ever call me back. So about 2 weeks ago I decided to show up at the house when I knew they would all be there. I knocked on the door and my wife would not answer it.

I admit I kind of lost it and started shouting and pounding on it, and she eventually came outside, where a yelling match ensued between her and I in the front yard. I finally left after she just put her hands over her ears and started yelling “dog fucker, dog fucker, dog fucker” over and over again to try to humiliate me in front of the neighborhood. As I walked back to my car fuming I looked back at the house and saw my son staring at me from the second story window with a blank look on his face. I stared at him and shook my head in disappointment, but he didn’t change his expression. I have to admit, that really broke my heart & pissed me off.

So fast forward to just a couple days ago. I am at work, nearing the end of my day, when suddenly my phone rings and it’s my wife. I pick it up, and she’s sobbing and obviously very upset. She tells me that Colby has bitten my son, and he has gone to the hospital to get stitches. She says Colby bit him in the lower abdomen, 2 times. She doesn’t know what to think. Obviously, I know exactly what happened. I could tell she finally knew I was right. Colby would NEVER bite anyone unprovoked, he is an incredibly friendly dog and has no history of biting or being aggressive at all.

When we got off the phone, I felt this rage building inside of me. I felt like it was finally time for this shit to end. Colby had stood up for himself against my son, who had betrayed both of us. I couldn’t prove it, but I just know my son was abusing the dog again, and I felt responsible for having left him alone with Colby all of these times. It was like Colby finally lashed out in desperation after having nobody there to protect him. I felt sick to my stomach for having abandoned my dog with my kid, who obviously doesn’t give a fuck about me or any of us, as long as he can keep getting away with shit.

I left work and went straight to the family home. This time, my wife answered the door and let me in. I went straight to my sons room, where he was laying down watching TV. He looked at me in surprise and I told him not to talk. I basically said “I know what you did, you can deny it and you can blame me all you want, but you and I both know what happened. I am taking the dog, and if I ever find out you go near an animal like this again I will report you to the police, I don’t care if you are my son. This is disgusting and unfair, and I raised you better”. Obviously I said more than that, but that was the gist of it. He was extremely uncomfortable.

Then I went downstairs and out the back door to get the dog. I put a leash and Colby and walked him back through the house, and my wife stopped me and told me she was sorry. We talked for about 5 minutes, and we both got a little weepy. She asked me to forgive her, which I told her I did. She then invited me to stay at the house, to which I said no. I’m not ready for that, and Colby deserved better, I had already let him down too many times.

I left her crying in the house, and put Colby in the car. We drove back to my friends place, where I am staying. I’ve since been looking for a small apartment with a short term lease that accepts dogs, as I have decided that I am not going to move back in with my family. At least not in the immediate future. Colby is finally with me, and is safe, and I need time to think about what our next move should be. I know that asking my friend to house me and now a dog is pushing the bounds of his good grace, so this is what has to happen.

A lot of you have written to me asking for updates, and I apologize for not getting back to all of you. Mostly, I had no significant changes in the situation until all of this. But I thought you all deserved to know that the dog is safe.

However, I still do not know what I am going to do about my son & wife. Do you think I should report him as is? The more I think about it, the more I am sure he will probably just do this again. Colby might be safe, but I am still, despite all he’s done to me, worried about my son. He is a minor, so legally I am still responsible for him. What sort of thing does one do for somebody who does this?