My girlfriend just moved in with me a couple weeks ago. My dog is pretty well trained but shoes are his weakness. I've tried everything to get him to stop chewing shoes but ultimately I decided to just not leave shoes laying around anymore and always put them away.
This worked well when I lived on my own but the closet at the front isn't big enough for all of my girlfriends shoes so they've been sitting in bins since she moved.
She's on vacation with her friends right now and I made her a nice walk in closet/makeup room off our bedroom as a surprise since there wasn't enough closet room in our house for both of our stuff.
I brought all of her shoes up yesterday to try and figure out the shelving spacing and forgot to put the lids back on the bins before I left for work. I got home this morning to find every single shoe she owns completely destroyed by my dog.
Only a couple shoes look like they could be fixable but there isn't even one pair that remains wearable. My dog was quite proud of himself.
My girlfriend is the type of person who is very methodical with her clothing/shoes. Everything she owns has been carefully selected, brands have been researched thoroughly and she takes immaculate care of her things. That is to say that they are all pretty expensive ($100-$500 per pair) and in perfect condition.
There's over 30 pairs of shoes. I've estimated the cost of replacing the ones I can find new online at $6000 and that doesn't include some of the brands that I don't recognize and can't find online or some that are no longer being sold.
I'm not really sure where to go from here. I was able to find around 20 pairs of the shoes online in the exact style that she had and I'm wondering if I should order those now and hope they get here before she gets home.
Obviously there's no hiding this, but I'm wondering if it would make her feel a bit better to at least have some shoes to choose from.
I am pretty sure that if I told her to go spend the amount in damages on new shoes she wouldn't because we're saving up to buy a new house and she'd rather put the money towards that, but I know she would be sad about not having all the choices that she had before. Any advice?
tl;dr: my dog ate thousands of dollars of shoes and I'm not sure if I should order replacements or have my girlfriend come home and be shoeless
Here was some of the advice from the comments.
vshzzd
honestly I would tell her about it before you do anything. trying to replace the shoes before she gets home seems sneaky even if you do tell her what happens. and I've got an equal number of shoes I like which are in good condition, but in my case, "good condition" often means "worn twice."
she might want to get entirely new styles, so just make it very clear to her that you intend to replace them one way or the other, that you've done your research and estimated the cost, and you're willing to fast track the purchase of some immediate replacements.
clairebones
What you actually need to do is not about the shoes. What you need to do is find a way to train your dog not to destroy her shoes, or else to show her that you've found a way to keep the dog away from the shoes.
The shoes can be replaced, and obviously do so or offering to do so is a very nice gesture. But I think the important thing here is showing that you want to solve the problem. Like you said you're saving for a house, so you cannot afford to constantly replace shoes, rather than coming up with a more permanent solution.
maddomesticscientist
I would hold off on ordering anything. Wait until she gets back and can participate. My reasoning being that say you order all those shoes. There may be a pair or two in there she secretly hates and never wears. Might as well give the monetary value so she can replace those shoes with some she likes.
I have a ton of shoes and if something destroyed them all I guarantee there's a pair or two I could care less about.
colakoala200
OP, if you have renter's insurance, don't forget about it. Now is the time to call them up and file a claim.
It's very possible that even if you do have renter's insurance, that it doesn't cover pet damage... but this kind of event is exactly what you have insurance for, so if you've been paying for that coverage, use it.
You should let your girlfriend know that whether insurance pays or not you are still going to make up for this financially however you can. Personally I think that you shouldn't order any replacements, you should offer to do so to whatever extent she wants and give her money for the rest.
Probably she took enough shoes to get by with on a daily basis with her on vacation, but if there is one pair you know she wears all the time at home you could replace just that one.
Also, when you tell her about this, please don't say anything like "my dog is pretty well trained." Your girlfriend deserves a big, sincere apology along with you fixing the damages, and you need to own all the things you did wrong here - both the lack of care you took, and the lack of properly training your dog.
UPDATE
I am getting a surprising number of PMs asking for an update so here it is. The general consensus from my first post was that I should buy a few key pairs before she gets home so I decided to go with that.
It was hard because where we live we are transitioning from winter to summer so I had to buy winter boots, rain boots, sandals, runners, and various types of work shoes.
Only about half of them arrived before she got home on Friday. I wish I could have bought them in person so I could have been certain they would be here, but I wasn’t able to since winter stuff is out of season and lots of the brands she likes are only available online.
Friday I picked her and her friends up from the airport. When we got a second of alone time I told her about the shoe situation. She was pissed initially. She wasn’t mad at me or our dog but more mad that it happened.
I decided not to tell her about the awesome closet that I built her while she was gone and just hoped that the surprise would soften the blow. On the car ride back she told her friends what happened and they really helped turn it into a positive event that she could laugh about.
She would only get sad when she remembered shoes that she spent a long time breaking in. Apparently her Birkenstocks took two full summers before they reached max comfiness so that was what she was the most sad about, I feel awful about that.
I actually took those ones to a cobbler because I KNEW she would be most upset about them but they couldn’t be salvaged, they were too far gone.
When we got home she wanted to see the carnage. I wasn’t sure it was a good idea because I was kind of expecting her to cry but she just thought it was funny. She had me make a small pine casket for the shoes while her and her friends got absolutely blasted and we buried them in the backyard that night.
She did cry briefly at the funeral but she was a trooper nonetheless. Her friends decided it was only fair for me to purchase every pair of shoes she wants for the rest of our lives and I drunkenly agreed, a decision that I’m sure will cost me a small fortune, but I stand by it all the same.
Over the past few days she has ordered all of the shoes she needed to replace the ones she lost. She only re-ordered around 10 pairs that she previously owned, so it was a good thing I didn’t go ahead and re-order them all.
She already had a Pinterest of every pair she wanted and had deemed to be worthy of her collection which made it was a fairly quick process. All in all, it cost around twice what I had anticipated but she didn’t break up with me so I’ll call it a win.
I’m just glad I was able to afford it, I couldn’t imagine how awful it would be to be in this position without being able to pony up. It’s going to set me back a few months on buying an engagement ring but I’m sure that won’t be an issue.
For everyone concerned about the dog, she isn’t worried about getting him trained more because he behaves perfectly otherwise. She said if anything, I need to be trained not to be a careless idiot. Joking aside, it was a fluke and we’re usually very good about keeping the shoes put away.
I made the doors to her closet and our front closet self-closing so we don’t ever need to worry about leaving them open. Like my girlfriend, the poor guy can’t resist shoes so we don’t really blame him for what happened, in fact we are quite proud of what he managed to accomplish in the 12 hours I was away.
tl;dr: everything went better than expected, my girlfriend is cool as a cucumber
Commenters celebrated the happy, shoeless couple.
heybrudder
So you had a.....shoeneral
DiTrastevere
I hope someone gave a nice shoelogy.
heybrudder
Well they say time heels all wounds.
DiTrastevere
Their soles are in a better place.
Jeanlouisefinchs
Good for you for being a great BF, and good for her for not overreacting. My pup ate a fair share of my shoes when we brought her home and I was always upset, but really, there's no one to blame. Good luck with the engagement OP! Sounds like you found a good one!
OP
I lost a bunch of shoes to the pup too. I read somewhere that they chew shoes because putting them on is the last thing you do before leaving them, so by destroying them they figure you can't leave. I'm sure it's not why they actually chew them but it makes me feel better.
mjheil
"She had me make a small pine casket for the shoes while her and her friends got absolutely blasted and we buried them in the backyard that night. "
SUPER! You guys are awesome.
You are a cool supportive boyfriend and she takes life's bad turns well. I wish you well in your happy marriage.
ETA: read about the closet. Made my day!
opensilkrobe
Some poor treasure hunter is going to dig up that box 100 years from now and write their dissertation about the peculiar custom we once had of giving footwear a proper burial.
tsukiii
In my youth, I once borrowed some clothes from a friend and then my roommates dog destroyed them. Ooooooo, I replaced what I could and paid for the rest, but accidentally ruining someone else’s things is such a horrible feeling. I don’t think I’ve borrowed anyone’s clothes since!
Glad the girlfriend took the news well and got some new shoes out of it, lol
knittedjedi
I don't know what the positive equivalent of a trigger warning is, but we need one for the exceptional puns at the end.
buff_helpy
Want to be mad on the girlfriends behalf but can't stop laughing at the shoe puns