Hey all. I'm 22 and live in the Twin Cities in MN. Going to refer to my Roommate as E and her friend who owns (used to own?) our dog as K. [Also, obligatory fluffybutt picture: http://tinyurl.com/zy6sq6g ]

Back in September my roommate's friend (K) left her dog with our household because K no longer had the means to take care of him. The deal was that she would keep paying for the health insurance, buy food about once a month, pay the pet deposit on our house, and cover emergency vet bills. We didn't have the money at the time to take care of him, but we had the space and enough people, so it seemed like a good compromise.

K lives in the TC area as well, and as a friend of the household she was totally welcome to come visit her dog and take him on walks and stuff, but except for one time when she came to leave a dozen big boxes in our basement, hasn't come by at all.

The dog is a sweetheart, but has really bad separation anxiety because K and her ex-boyfriend mistreated him, and he's been abandoned once already. When we got him he was barely house trained, it seemed because he was used to not being let outside to do his business. After a few weeks of routinely letting him outside first thing in the morning, after work, before dinner, before bed on random smoke breaks, he doesn't ever go potty in the house. So he's doing really well now.

Anyways, about three weeks ago he got into some chocolate in the trash and ended up having to go to the Dog-ER, which was $300. My E called K up to let her know and ask her to pay us back when she had a chance. Earlier this week (thursday or friday) my roommate messaged K again to be like "Hey, its been 2-3 weeks and I kind of need the money for that ER visit, since you said you'd pay for it." Yesterday (saturday) K starts freaking out, demands to know when she can come get the dog (despite not having anywhere for him to stay) and when E tells her to calm down and think rationally, calls E's mom repeatedly at 8am, starts harassing her, starts harassing mutual friends of theirs etc etc.

We're really not sure what to do at this point. We love our little pint-sized fuzzball, and don't want to see him go, especially not to a bad home. I think the one thing that might work really well in our favor is that the dog is registered under both K's name (original owner) AND E's name. And E is the primary care-giver.

Any suggestions of how to go about dealing with K? Do we take her to small-claims court? Do we call the cops? Do we need an attorney? Thanks, - M