How I Met Your Mother: Why Ted Made Robin Get Rid Of Her Dogs
Ted Mosby made a lot of terrible decisions on How I Met Your Mother, but one of the worst things he ever did was forcing Robin Scherbatsky to get rid of her dogs. The two characters, played by Josh Radnor and Cobie Smulders, respectively, served as primary characters throughout the sitcom's nine-season run. The pair shared a complicated on-again-off-again relationship. Despite the fact that Robin wasn't the "Mother," the two ended up together in the divisive How I Met Your Mother series finale. So why exactly did Ted make Robin get rid of her dogs when they first started dating?
From the beginning of the CBS sitcom, it was made clear that Robin was a fan of dogs. She never envisioned herself as a mother, which was why she probably preferred four-legged animals instead. According to her backstory, Robin grew up with a dog named Sir Scratchewan. Though he had to be put down due to his old age, Robin was led to believe that the pet went through an experimental procedure, turning him into a turtle. Her love of dogs never wavered, and she had multiple pets early on in the series.
While living in New York City, Robin owned five dogs of different breeds. The pets became the focus of a season 2 episode titled "Stuff" when Robin explained that the animals were given to her by ex-boyfriends. She and Ted were dating at the time, but the presence of the dogs started to cause issues. Robin was concerned about some of the objects from Ted's various exes being kept around the apartment. This, in turn, caused Ted to take issue with the dogs, envisioning them as Robin's old boyfriends rather than animals. Ted then rudely demanded that she get rid of the dogs as part of an agreement to discard connections to exes.
Robin surprisingly obliged, sending her five dogs to live on a farm with her aunt to make Ted feel better. She insinuated that they would have a better life compared to living in a city apartment. That may have been true, but viewers took issue with the fact that Ted would even contemplate asking his girlfriend to get rid of her pets. To most people, pets are like family, so this was a major request for someone he just entered a relationship with. After Robin sent them away they were never seen again in the series, even though the pair eventually broke up.
Though the storyline was questionable, the absence of the dogs was later explained by Radnor. The actor suffered a severe allergic interaction because of the dogs, resulting in a need for paramedics. To avoid any similar situations, the pets were probably taken out of the equation at least for most of the show's run. In the year 2030, Robin had moved on with her life and acquired five new dogs at some point. This was an obvious callback to the beginning of her arc in the series. It was unclear, however, how Ted reacted to Robin's pets in How I Met Your Mother's future timeline but hopefully, he let them stick around this time.