'AITA for not including the entire family in a quilt I made for my mother?' 'I feel like a major jerk.'

"AITA for not including the 'entire family' in a quilt I made for my mother?"

So, a little while ago, it was my mother's birthday. I like to sew, so I thought it would be a good idea to make her a quilt. I had the idea to make some of the squares family photos, so I got some family pictures printed out onto fabric, and added them in the quilt. It had me, my siblings, and my parents.

When I gave the quilt to my mother, she seemed happy at first before she looked at all the photos. She looked disappointed, and when I questioned why, she said that she was upset that I didn't have any photos including the dog.

Now, as a bit of a side note, I have always had a phobia of dogs, which people never really got about me. We do have a dog in the house, but I choose to not ackowledge it or be around it. My mother knows very well my fear of them. But, she treats this dog like it's her own son.

She cooks it meals everyday, gets it food at McDonald's, gives it many presents during Christmas, and practically every framed photo in the house is of the dog rather than anyone else. Essentially, she treats it less like it is a dog, and more like it is a human child, even calling it her youngest son.

Since I don't like the family dog, (for reasons I won't dive into here...) I chose to not incorporate it into the quilt, (also since I don't have any photos of it on my phone anyways...) And now, my mother seems to really dislike the gift. I asked her if she doesn't like the quilt, and she just sighed and said that it was cruel of me to not include her youngest in the quilt. I feel bad.

Since I am moving away soon, I wanted to give her a nice hand-made gift, since I've never done that before, but she seems so disappointed with it. I thought the photos I picked out were nice. Some were recent, but most of them were from many years ago, before they even got the dog.

My dad is telling me that it is perfectly fine that I didn't include the dog, and that the quilt is still very nice, but my brother seems angry with me, saying that I can't just leave out family members in a "family themed" quilt.

It's been around a week since that happened, and my mom has never once used or even touched the quilt. I looked and found that she put it under her bed. I feel sad, but also guilty. I feel like a major jerk, since I just wanted to make her happy. My mother has also been a bit more distant with me as well, so I'm scared that our relationship will be affected by this.

EDIT:

I feel like I should clarify some things. Looking through the replies, I see most people saying that I am the AH. People seem to think that I deliberately left out the dog to upset my mother, and that I should have been more mindful of her feelings since this is a gift for her.

She's had the dog for around 6 years now, and has mentioned quite a few times that she values dog lives over human children's lives. She also mentioned that in the case of a house fire, she would save the dog first, then go back in to save her children.

I've had this dog phobia since I was a kid, and it hasn't gotten better since the dog has been in the house. I'm not allowed to go to therapy either, so I was left with no resources to help me with this fear. It was especially bad since whenever I leave my room, my mother or brother would try to get the dog to chase and bark at me, since they think it's funny.

They still do that to this day... But, back to the quilt situation, my mother has framed photos all around the house of her dog. She has maybe two photos of her human children, but around 12 photos of the dog. When making the quilt, yes, I did purposely exclude the dog.

I did this partly because I felt that there was already enough photos of the dog in the house, and partly because I wanted to give her something to remind her of her human children.

The vast majority of the photos I chose were ones taken when me and my siblings were young children, so before they even got the dog. And no, (I hate that I have to even say this) I don't harm dogs or wish harm upon dogs like some of you seem to think...

EDIT 2:

Shortly after I woke up this morning, I went to try and grab the quilt from under the bed in order to take some photos of it, but I couldn't find it. I asked my dad if he knew where it was, but he was just as clueless as me. We searched a lot of the house, but couldn't find it. I'll update again if I find out what happened to it.

Here's what top commenters had to say about this one:

Jenicillin said:

NTA. Take back the quilt you made with loving hands that she doesn't appreciate and move out.

T_G_A_H said:

NTA. Is your mother always this unappreciative and dismissive of your love and thoughtfulness? Is it always all about her? Focus your efforts on people who truly care about you and appreciate you. It sounds like your mother isn’t one of them.

diminishingpatience said:

NTA. You can't please someone who is determined not to be pleased.

Weird_spider555 said:

NTA: Tell her that if she wants a "whole family" (that includes the dog) quilt she could sew the squares herself.

Jocelyn-1973 said:

NTA. Your mother sounds very ungrateful. You made her a quilt with all the human family. In my bubble, a reaction such as your mother's would be seen as extremely rude. If you think this may make you a major jerk, you are probably conditioned to believe your mother is always right and you are always wrong.

Decalvare_Scriptor said:

ESH. You're TA because you were making a gift for HER and knew she'd love to have the dog included but didn't do so because of YOUR feelings. She's TA because of how she reacted.

quidyn said:

ESH. Your mom is a little overboard with how she treats the dog, but this quilt was for her. If it were a gift for me, and I have a “healthy” relationship with my dogs, I would want them included. However, I would still be gracious over a gift someone handmade for me and at least keep it out and use it for a time before tucking it away.

Your dislike of the dog lead to your intentional omission of the dog. Don’t pretend like social media doesn’t exist or that you couldn’t have asked your brother to send you a picture. You did a jerk thing on purpose and your mom is just not being polite.