My 20 year old SIL (husbands sister) and her 2 dogs live with my husband and I. Her fiancé committed suicide and passed away in August. She and her 2 dogs have lived with us in our nicer, new home since August (we just bought it in August and she moved right on with us). And we are having a problem with both her dogs, but one is worse than the other.

DH and I have 2 dogs as well, and I had them house trained by 3months. Her dogs are 2 & 3 years old and still peeing in my house, on my new carpet. The one even has a habit of peeing on my furniture. We were going to be getting a new couch and I said she absolutely had to stop doing that bc I will not tolerate that happening on my new, $1,500 couch. She had been doing ok with not peeing on my furniture but it happened again twice this weekend. Once on Saturday and then yesterday. Saturday, I’d just had all the dogs out, DH came home and they all ran to greet him, but then the one dog ran to my old couch and started peeing. I yelled at her, then she ran and jumped on my new couch and proceeded to keep peeing while DH and I both ran at her to get her down. When I went to grab her to show it to her and say bad she tried to bite me. So I told DH to take care of it. She tried biting him as well. He texted my SIL and told her (she was not home at the time). All she said was sorry.

Sunday after my SIL got up, I was showing her where on the couch the dog peed to make sure we couldn’t see it anymore, and the dog hopped up right where I was standing and squatted and peed again. I told my SIL she is not to be in the house; I told her to Kennel her or throw her ass outside. I know both dogs are also still peeing downstairs bc she told me Saturday they hadn’t had any accidents in the basement for a few days. And that is brand new carpet down there.

DH and I have told her 2 other times already she has got to be home more to work with them but nothing has changed. She only works part time, just a few hours in the morning, and then spends the rest of the day with her sister or friends. She leaves around 6am and doesn’t come home until 10pm. On weekends it’s more like 1am or she just doesn’t come home at all. I do not keep the dogs Kenneled that whole time bc it is not fair to them. They are with me just like my dogs but they do not listen and keep peeing inside, no matter how many times I’ve already taken them outside.

I have never had a dog I couldn’t train, and I’ve also never had one try to bite me. The couch incidents are not accidents bc she is intentionally hopping up there and peeing. And it’s not like she’s excited and dribbling she is legit peeing. DH and I don’t know what to do. I said maybe the dog needs to stay with their parents and other sisters since they are home more and maybe they can train her, but that still causes the problem of her not listening to us or my SIL. After yesterday I said I don’t want her in the house (except when she’s sleeping with my SIL at night) but her being Kenneled all the time doesn’t teach her anything and that’s no life for a dog.

Honestly, I’d rather she just got rid of her. She’s hardly home anyways. DH feels the same. But we don’t know if we can or should tell my SIL this. Mostly bc everyone keeps telling me she is already going through a tough enough time losing her fiancé. I do fully understand that will take her a while to get over, she doesn’t seem to have any issue running around having fun, but I cannot her to be responsible for certain things. There are other issues but the dogs are the biggest one. I would also like to mention we are not charging her rent or even making her pay for dog food since she is financially strained until her house sells. And I think that’s a big part of my anger too. We are helping her so much but she doesn’t have the decency to make sure her pets respect my home.

What would you do and what do you think we should try?