It wasn't really forced. The employee chose to get an ultra-high-maintenance pet that required the employee to be home all day long, because the employee assum

It wasn't really forced. The employee chose to get an ultra-high-maintenance pet that required the employee to be home all day long, because the employee assumed they'd never have to go back to office work for the dog's lifetime. That was a really bad assumption, and a bad bet to make. The employee could also have chosen to keep the dog, and just hire dog sitters M-F to keep it company. Apparently they didn't want to do that, or they couldn't afford it, in which case it's questionable why they thought they could afford such a pet in the first place. IMO, people really need to re-think their ideas about dogs as pets. Dogs are pets for rich people, full stop. They're pets for showing off how much money you have, because you can afford silly luxuries like working from home (most of the working population can't do this), or hiring a dog walker, stuff that used to be normal only for rich celebrities. Nowadays, it seems like all Americans think they're entitled to having such a pet, no matter how much it inconveniences their life, their employment, their family, etc. How Americans ever got this idea, I'm not sure, because it wasn't like this 25 years ago at all. Back then, people who had dogs lived in more rural places and kept them in the (large) back yard in a doghouse; they sure as hell didn't plan their day around a dog.