Do You Think Sometimes You Love Your Dogs More Than Other Family Members Do?

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I am a huge animal lover, all types of animals, but I've always especially loved dogs ever since I was a little kid. When my husband and I got married, some 30 years ago now, I was pleased that, even though he came from a family who thought dogs were messy and too much trouble and so on, he also wanted to always have dogs. So we always have had one to two dogs. He seems to love them as much as I do and certainly takes good care of them, as well as I do...well, most of the time. Here's the problem. My husband, who seems to be a decent guy but has always been a bit passive aggressive (again, from his family's traits) seems to make a lot of really stupid decisions at times when it comes to our dogs. We adopted our last two from the pound, about 6 years ago, to give some unwanted dogs a home and they are the most wonderful mutts in the world, especially the smaller one. He is very protective and loving, but he's also become sick with a rare skin condition over the last year. Plus, he's always had a hard time walking and, while he can walk, he limps a lot lately with his back leg in the air. It's arthritis, and not much the vet can do (also, it might be a side effect from the rather expensive meds he has to take now for the skin infection but if he doesn't take them he's miserable..if he takes them he's comfortable and fine). When my husband's family sees any pet as becoming "inconvenient" they think you should just put the pet down, regardless of whether the pet is in pain or not. If the dog or cat gets sick, etc., you just put them to sleep, in their opinon, especially if treatment is going to cost any money whatsoever. When our little dog first started getting sick and the vet finally hit upon these meds that finally did the trick (they are expensive, but that's what the emergency charge card is for), I could tell my husband, who seems to absolutely adore this little dog and the feeling is mutual, was ready to put him down. I told him that wasn't going to happen, period, unless the dog got in a lot of pain, etc. and couldn't get any treatment to help him. So the dog got better with the meds and all seemed to be back to normal. Then tonight my husband had wanted to hunt for a map he thought was in his car. Our little dog wanted to go with him, so my husband put his leash on and took him out the front door. I didn't think anything about it because my husband takes them for at least 2 walks every night. The next thing you know my husband is coming in and wanting to know if the dog came back in. He said the dog wouldn't go off the front porch (he won't sometimes if his leg is hurting but I just let him back in the house then). However, rather than letting him back inside or even securing his leash to the porch rail, which would have taken a few seconds, my husband just went on, a couple of feet out of sight of the dog, and thoroughly searched his car for whatever he was looking for, nothing important...a map we picked up for free at a local rest stop. Well, the dog took off down our busy highway, without my husband's knowledge then since he was still busy searching through his car, and it was getting dark. Our dog has that damaged back leg so he can't move fast and couldn't get out of the way of a speeding car. Long story short, we found him rather quickly, thank goodness, he hadn't gone far, but just as we found him a speeding car was just cresting the hill on the same side our poor dog was on. There was no way the dog could have moved fast enough to get out of way of that fast car had we not been out there to run down and grab our dog up. I was furious but my husband just kept saying, "Look, it was just a mistake, I'll know better next time." The thing is he has off and on in the past just left the back gate open and the dogs have got out into heavy traffic then as well. Or he has taken the little dog out without a leash and the dog has, when he was younger, taken off after another dog. My husband goes and gets the dogs immediately or keeps after them until he gets them back safely, but he makes stupid decisions about the dogs like this one tonight too often for my taste. The thing is, we've been married 30 years, so I have to figure out a way to get over being so mad at this, but I can't stop being furious whenever something like this happens. It's just such a blankety blankety stupid decision to make, and my husband isn't stupid by any means....he has a very technical job and he can fix just about any car that was ever made...so this isn't a dumb man. So why on earth does he keep making such dumb decisions when it comes to our dogs? He acts like the loves them dearly and he takes them for walks and feeds them, etc. He's not mean to them, but he seems to be putting them in harm's way every several months or so and he always says afterward, "Geez, it was just a mistake, anyone can make a mistake. I'll know better next time." I think I tend to think of the dogs more as individual beings, but I think, given his family pattern, that he loves the dogs, but not like I love them. I just don't get this, but the good part of getting so angry is he doesn't make any more stupid mistakes like that...until about 6 or 7 months later and then he does it again. Why would a smart and seemingly loving man keep making such stupid mistakes? Thus far, the dogs have never come to any harm, he does go out and rescue them right away..but why put them in need of rescue to begin with? How could somone not think this through, especially when they've made the same mistakes before? I just don't get this. And I'm having a very hard time forgiving him for this latest stupid mistake tonight, especially since our dog could have easily been run over if we had not got out there in time. Anyone been in such a situation and, if so, how did you handle it, how did you manage to get over your anger with this type of situation.