She renamed my dog for Instagram, and now he’s in kidney failure because she fed him bison jerky for likes.
I’d watched for weeks as my ex-husband’s new girlfriend plastered Barnaby’s face all over social media—decked out in dog hats, paraded as her “emotional support animal,” peddled for affiliate codes under the name *Captain Fluff*. Then came the cancellations. The fake coughs. The excuses. Week by week, she stole more of him, chipping away at the one piece of peace I had left from my divorce. And when I called it out, she livestreamed herself crying about how *I* was the unstable one.
But now Barnaby’s collapsed. And thanks to one last desperate stunt, I finally have the receipts, the vet records, and the legal ammo to end her show—for good. Justice is coming, and she won’t see it until it’s staring back at her from a hospital bill and a courtroom summons.
A Fragile Peace: The Sunday Ritual
For five years, my Sundays have been governed by a ritual. At noon, I drive my sensible sedan to the curb in front of the house I used to share with my ex-husband, Mark. He meets me at the door with Barnaby, our twelve-year-old golden retriever, and we exchange the dog and a few polite, sterile words. It’s a fragile truce, the one and only success story from our otherwise scorched-earth divorce. Our notarized custody agreement for Barnaby, mocked by our lawyers but sacred to us, has been the single thread holding our civility together.
Today is different. Mark lingers at the door, his hand resting awkwardly on Barnaby’s head. Barnaby leans against my legs, his tail giving a few slow, happy thumps. “So, Sarah,” Mark starts, avoiding my eyes. “Just a heads-up. My girlfriend, Tiffany, is moving in.”
I feel a muscle in my jaw tighten. I know of Tiffany, of course. It’s hard to miss her on Mark’s social media—a cascade of filtered selfies and festival photos. She’s twenty-six. “Okay, Mark. Thanks for the information.” I keep my voice neutral, clipping on Barnaby’s leash.
“She’s really excited to get to know him,” he adds, as if that’s a comfort. I just nod, giving Barnaby’s leash a gentle tug. He’s my dog. He’s our dog. The carefully constructed peace of our arrangement suddenly feels like a pane of glass under a coming hailstorm. I get Barnaby into the car, and as I pull away, I see her silhouette in the window. Watching.
The Rebranding of Barnaby
The first volley in the war I didn’t know we were fighting arrived on a Tuesday. It was a text from a friend with a screenshot and a single line: “Um, have you seen this?” The image was a professionally lit photo of Barnaby, wearing a tiny, ridiculous fedora, tilted at a jaunty angle. He looked profoundly confused. The Instagram handle was @CaptainFluff. The bio read: “Adventures with my best boy, Captain Fluff! Follow along as his REAL mom shows him the best life!”
I dropped my phone on the kitchen counter as if it were hot. Captain Fluff? I scrolled through the feed, a perfectly curated grid of pastel colors and obnoxious captions. Here was Barnaby, now “Captain Fluff,” posed with a puppuccino. Here he was again, draped in a cashmere blanket that cost more than my car payment, with the caption, “So glad he finally has a home where he’s truly cherished.” Each photo was a tiny, smiling dagger aimed right at me.
My husband, David, looked over my shoulder. “Wow. That’s… a choice.” His calmness was a stark contrast to the acid churning in my gut. “She’s just trying to stake her claim. It’s what insecure people do.”
“She renamed my dog, David. For Instagram.” It felt like she hadn’t just moved into my old house, but was actively trying to rewrite my history, one condescending hashtag at a time. #dogmom. #rescueismyfavoritebreed. Barnaby wasn’t a rescue. I’d picked him out from a litter on a farm in eastern Washington when he was a seven-pound ball of fluff. His name was Barnaby.
The First Cancellation
The Sunday after the Instagram account launched, my phone rang an hour before the scheduled exchange. It was Mark. “Hey, Sarah,” he began, his voice strained. “Listen, we might have to skip this week.”
I gripped the phone tighter. “Skip? Why? Is he okay?” A dozen terrible, geriatric-dog scenarios flashed through my mind.
“Oh, yeah, he’s fine. He’s just… Tiffany thinks he seems really anxious. She feels like moving him back and forth is starting to stress him out. She wants to give him a week to just… you know, decompress.”
The excuse was so flimsy, so transparently manipulative, it left me momentarily speechless. Barnaby’s entire life had been a masterclass in stability and routine. He was anxious because a stranger with a ring light and a closet full of dog-sized hats had invaded his space. “Mark, our agreement is for every other week. He’s not a piece of furniture you can decide to keep because it ties the room together. He’s my dog.”
“I know, I know,” he said, his voice dropping to a placating whisper. “It’s just for this week, Sarah. To keep the peace. Tiffany’s really sensitive about his emotional state.” I could hear her in the background, a faint murmur of coaching. The call ended with his weak apologies and my cold, one-word replies. I hung up, my hands trembling with a rage so pure it felt like a physical force.
The Digital Contradiction
That evening, stewing in a potent cocktail of anger and helplessness, I did what I knew I shouldn’t. I opened Instagram. The algorithm, in its infinite and cruel wisdom, had already pushed @CaptainFluff to the top of my feed. A new post had gone up less than an hour ago.
It wasn’t a photo. It was a video, set to some upbeat, royalty-free pop song. There was Barnaby, my “anxious” and “overwhelmed” dog, in the middle of a chaotic, jam-packed dog beach. He was surrounded by yapping strange dogs and shrieking children, looking bewildered as Tiffany, in a tiny bikini, tried to get him to pose for a selfie. The wind whipped sand into his face.
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