There are too many excellent advice columns to keep up with, so we're committed to bringing you links to the best advice column questions and answers every week. Here's a roundup of the most interesting, thought-provoking and surprising questions that our favorite columnists addressed in recent days.

How Can We Console Our Daughter, Who’s Mad At Us For Surrendering The Wolf Pup We Accidentally Adopted?

A year ago, we were out driving for some errands and saw a puppy abandoned by the side of the road. Our 7-year-old daughter, "Daisy" insisted we couldn't just leave him there, and we wound up taking in the pup, getting him fed, vaccinated, and cleaned up by a vet and after a short, failed search to find him a permanent home among our friend circle, we decided to keep him. Daisy named him Barklekins, and the name stuck. Unfortunately, Barkelkins wasn't the greatest pet. He got along with us, but pretty much any dog or anyone outside the family would get snapped at if they went too close. None of the training methods we tried worked, so about a month ago we got desperate enough to take him to one of those dog obedience schools, hoping the professionals could do what the amateurs couldn't. The instructor realized the problem two seconds after we walked him in: Barklekins was an abandoned timber wolf pup.

That created not just a pet problem, but a legal problem. Timber wolves are exotic animals by our state's laws, and that means you need to get an exotic pet license and all sorts of classes to keep him. The time and money to do that wasn't available, so we wound up surrendering Barklekins to animal control. They say he's going to be rehomed in an animal shelter, but the person we spoke to was very vague about specifics, and I have a private certainty that he was just put down. Daisy has been absolutely inconsolable. For all of his other behavioral problems, the wolf was always very gentle with her, and she misses her "dog" terribly. She says she's never going to forgive us for not taking the classes to keep him, after all, she takes classes every day. And she seems impervious to even listening to why we did what we did. How do we help her get over this?

[Slate]

Doyin Richards advises the letter writer to get Daisy a new dog, when she's ready. "[Y]ou have to let her express her anger and frustration, and keep reminding her as best you can that this was for the best, even if you feel that she isn't listening to you," he writes. "I promise that she won't hate you forever because of this, it's just that the wound is extremely raw right now." Read the rest of his answer.

Was I Wrong To Leave A Camping Trip, Against My Boyfriend's Wishes, When I Was Having A Medical Reaction To Wildfire Smoke?

My boyfriend and I went camping this summer during an air quality advisory. At first it wasn't bad, but as the first day went on, the sky turned gray and everything smelled like smoke. (The fires were far away so we were not worried about being caught in them.)

I have a health condition that can be triggered by bad air, so I told him I had to leave. I suggested driving to a nearby hotel, and if the air was better in the morning, we could come back to the campsite. (For what it's worth, we had come in my car, so I wasn't asking to borrow his.) I even clarified that I would pay for the hotel. He didn't want to leave and got frustrated with me for suggesting it, and eventually things escalated into a fight. He accused me of making excuses and exaggerating my health problems, and suggested the truth was that I just didn't want to be with him. Finally I felt myself starting to feel sick and I told him that I had to leave for my own safety, with or without him. I said I was going to the hotel and I'd rather he come with me, but if he didn't want to, I couldn't force him. He refused to budge so I went to the hotel by myself and came back the next morning to pick him up.

Ever since then, he's had a grudge against me for "abandoning" him in the smoky air. He said I didn't leave him an escape route and he would have been screwed if it got worse, that I was prioritizing myself over him, and if I'd thought it was actually dangerous then I shouldn't have left him there. I said it was my car so it should have been my choice. It has been a sore spot between us and now I am starting to doubt myself. Was I wrong for leaving?>

[Outside]

Blair Braverman urges the letter writer to reconsider whether they really want to be in a relationship with their boyfriend. "If one member of a couple is having a health problem, then both members of the couple should prioritize getting them to safety as soon as possible, by whatever means," she writes. "The same applies to a friendship, of course. It even applies to strangers." Read the rest of her answer.

What Should My Coworkers And I Do After Management Revoked Up To 200 Hours Of People's Vacation?

We were recently informed that for the last 28 months (since May 2021), the system that records our timecards, PTO, pay stubs and other financial information had a "glitch" that incorrectly allocated more vacation time per pay period than was in the benefits guide. Leadership just found this out and are working to get the updated balances out to all staff.

For the past couple of years, leadership has waived the max vacation carryover rule and has repeatedly asked people to spend down their hours. People have saved PTO for honeymoons, to care for their children outside of school hours, and to supplement sick time for family emergencies and parental leave and were relying on this number to be accurate. Former staff members have come and gone and been paid out for these extra hours in that time. But now staff are finding themselves with negative balances, since the updated calculations are reducing totals by up to 200 hours per person. If you leave before your balance is over 0, you have to pay back the organization. If we had left before the error was fixed, we would not have been affected. It feels like the employees are being punished for staying, for a mistake that’s not ours and for trusting the system and the team in charge of it. What can we leverage to push back on this? Is there a way we can propose a different solution to leadership that wouldn’t penalize the team for this error?

[Ask A Manager]

Alison Green rules that it's terrible for a company to try to correct people's vacation time downward after years of miscalculations. "This is the company's error, and the only ethical way to handle it is for the company to take the hit, let people have the balances they've been telling them they had, and just start calculating correctly from this point forward," she writes. Read the rest of her answer.

Should I Resume My Friendship With Someone Who Won't Stop Trying To Dissuade Me From Taking The Medication I Need?

I met "Stacy" a good 10 years ago, and we've been off-and-on friends ever since.

But recently she's found out what medications I take and all the doctor's appointments I have, and she won't stop bugging me about coming off of the birth control pill I'm currently taking. I'm 37 and I have a very serious and painful reproductive condition and am following my physician's recommendation for the best way to treat it.

I've had therapy twice and I'm on antidepressants.

But she's been on me to stop taking the pill, she's currently annoyed at me for the choices I've made. She is extremely anti-medication. I have blocked her on Whatsapp before because of this.

She's currently on vacation and we're not talking. Should I just forget her?

[Tribune Content Agency]

Amy Dickinson validates the letter writer's decision to distance themselves from Stacy. "Quite simply — your medical issues and the treatment you're receiving is none of her business," she writes. "Furthermore, her uninformed recommendations regarding your health might make things worse for you, if you followed them." Read the rest of her answer.

Why Must My Sister Lecture Me And The Young Children In Our Family About How Halloween Is An Evil And Satanic Holiday?

Halloween has always been a big deal in our family. My mom and dad would even switch off taking us around for trick or treating so they were both able to enjoy some of the fun too, and on the weekend closest to the holiday, they would host a big family and friends Halloween party. Everyone looked forward to it.

My sister is married to a man who was raised in a Fundamentalist Christian tradition, which she decided to embrace when they got married.

Her son from her first marriage was a high-schooler by the time she and her second husband got together. But her current husband has his own children, who are tweeners. All their friends and their cousins trick or treat, but they are forbidden to...

How they choose to raise their children is their business, but my sister has started going on about how evil and anti-Christian we are for letting our children go trick or treating and celebrating what they call a satanic holiday.

Last time they were over to my house, she started telling our whole family, including the youngest, that to celebrate Halloween is to give in to and help spread evil…

What she and her husband do with the kids they're raising is their business, but why does she feel the need to tell everyone else what's right or wrong for them?

[UExpress]

Susan Writer observes that new converts are often very zealous about their beliefs. "While it's not particularly likely to change her or her husband's point-of-view, I think you wouldn't be out of line to remind her that just as you respect her beliefs and choices, you expect her to extend that same courtesy to yours," she writes. Read the rest of her answer.

How Can I Stop Giving My Teen Son The Silent Treatment And Convince Him The Persuasive Essay He Wrote For Class Was Wrong?

I have a 15-year-old son, "Evan." Evan's doing well in school, but I still keep an eye on him and his work, and over the weekend I took a peek at his half-finished essay for his Composition and Rhetoric class. I knew he had to write a persuasive essay, but what I found shocked me. It was a pro-conscription argument, mostly centering on bridging the gap between civilians and military and on how it makes democracies more militarily adventurous when the people dying in wars are largely a cohort of their own who can be sealed off from the rest of the voting public. I was a bit too young for Vietnam, but the memory of conscription (I had cousins forced to fight) and how it drove even boys my age to strive as hard as you can to get into a college, any college, to avoid being sent away to die scarred a lot of my peers.

Evan wasn't in the house when I saw his "work," but I resolved to give him a piece of my mind when he got back, only to find that I couldn't find the courage to do so. And in fact, I've barely been able to speak to him since, and not about his essay. I've even found myself making excuses to avoid my son. How do I get over this and show him how he's wrong?

[Slate]

Nicole Chung points out that it's healthy and developmentally appropriate for teenagers to think through their opinions on complex topics. "Let your son know that you saw his argument, ask what he's learned in his research and why he wrote what he did, and go from there," she writes. "You can tell him your position, and explain why you feel it's right, but don't just talk at him the entire time; be ready to listen and consider his questions, too." Read the rest of her answer.