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Hi guys, Op here! Wasn't expecting this to get posted so that's a pretty nice side to my situation :D I enjoyed reading you guy's comments, and to some of you trying to defend the dog (Peanut) you have nothing to fear. I have been put in a position where I had to take care of Peanut every now and then, but only for a day or two while my mother was feeling un-responsible. So I know for sure that Peanut really is a handful. I mean, she needs attention 24/7, has to have her diaper changed (which is really gross!) at least 5 times a day, bites most people who try to touch her, smells pretty bad no matter how many baths I give her, and enjoys spreading her scent all over my apartment! I understand that Peanut is nearing her end in the next year or two, plus I feel bad that she hasn't had a stable home all her life which explains her bad behavior. I've also been a vegetarian since I was 6, and was the president of my high school's Animal Rights Club back in the day, so I don't plan on getting rid of Peanut or ending her life early. The reason why my mother "gave me" peanut is because she is going through her mid life crisis and wants to travel the world without any obligations, like an elderly dog she adopted a year ago. My mother has always been flaky and unable to keep her word, and I'd normally understand since she really has nothing to lose. She isn't married (divorced my father when I was in 1st grade), hates her job, plus both me and my brother have already moved out and graduated from college. I know she didn't dump Peanut on my brother since he couldn't care less about the life of an animal, I just wished she could have tried to find someone else (or not have used Peanut as a lousy excuse of a Christmas gift since she knows I've conversed to Agnosticism) judging my current conditions. At this moment I recently got married to my Japanese hubby originally from Osaka Japan. I work as a language teacher which is quite flexible location wise, plus me and my husband are both still in our early 20's, so we were hoping to travel a lot and even move to Japan as soon as possible. However it's very hard to get a large pet like Peanut from America to Japan so that may be impossible. Not to mention my husband is slightly allergic to animals that shed! To top it all off we also have a non-shedding, dog hating cat in our apartment building that just so happens to NOT ALLOW DOGS. With all this in mind I don't really understand why my mother chose me as her new doggie's mama. I talked to my husband who knows how "nutty" my mother can be and he was completely understanding. He apparently spoke with our landlord this afternoon who is also a very nice man and agreed we can keep Peanut for now, as long as she doesn't bark or disturb our neighbors. We also looked up that if we keep giving Peanut plenty of baths then her fur shouldn't bother my husband too much, after all she needs it too. Yuck! As for our cat, she's still young. So she just needs to learn to play nice with Peanut for a little while. Then maybe we'll get another cat after Peanut passes on to even things out a bit. For now we've got things all settled, it's just a little upsetting since I've been working so hard these past couple of years learning Japanese so that I could eventually move there with my husband, and now that we're finally ready to go it's not too great having an obstacle keeping us from going for now. We'll go as soon as we can though =) Sorry for this super long comment, and thanks for all of your advice! Happy holidays! -Eri