When you no longer live close to them they can ' t afford to be assholes any more else you ignore them . You do you and live your lives , they ' ll figure it out . <| sep |> Quite the opposite really . People were already jumping on the bandwagon for having this family investigated for child abuse . I just pointed out that with the information given , there ' s no sane reason to do so . <| sep |> Not exactly my own pet , but my dad had two cats and an older dog a few years ago . The dog was really getting up there in age at the time so my dad wanted to let him in the house while keeping the cats outside and letting them go in the large garageworkshop instead . At first this was as simple as letting the dog in and out as he would bark at the door . Eventually my dad decided that a simpler solution would be to install a doggy door and let him come and go as he pleased . Now this was a little bit of an oversight as the cats figured out how to use the ' doggy ' door too . But that isn ' t what makes them so smart . My dad found a magneticlocking doggy door that sealed shut until it detected a little sensor attached to the dog ' s collar . We all thought this was the end of it , but you guessed it already . The cats would actually both wait and watch the dog until he started walking back toward the doggy door and rush past him into he house before it locked again . I ' ve always regarded cats as very intelligent animals but that just reinforced it so much more .