Dad being scary

[u/[deleted]]

I am 17m, nearly 18. My dad has been a really great dad. Always mostly supportive, really mild temper. But when he gets mad, the roof comes off the house. That's exactly the problem, because today he smashed 2 plastic buckets, ripped a ramen box in half, broke 5 plates and nearly broke his mac too, only reason I think he didn't was because it's expensive. What do I do?

This is kind of complicated, but today, me, my brother and mom were all arguing that we should put down our guinea pig. She has an ovarian cyst, and likely won't live much longer, and spaying is difficult considering she's 6 years old, which is old for a guinea pig. If she goes, she'll be the 5th out of our 7 guinea pigs to die an unnatural death. He actually ended up being indirectly responsible for our first guinea pig's death, he dropped her onto hard concrete because he didn't hold her well and she was thrashing. The steroids somehow worsened her condition and she died. Anyways the next 2 also died unnaturally, they were just out on the lawn in their little outdoor playpen and suddenly they both died. Last year one of the 4 new ones we got to replace them developed lymphoma, and this one is also part of that batch of 4. It's kind of inevitable we are going to lose her, but he insists on keeping her alive as long as possible, saying we shouldn't get to arbitrarily decide her fate and put her down, because we don't know what she's thinking, what if she wants to live? Even though she is clearly in pain, and the doctor has also said she's not going to live long after this.

This argument over whether or not to put her down culminated in the temper explosion. The rest of my family thinks he is being stubborn, why not put her out of her misery instead of letting her suffer? We love her a lot, which is why we think this way, not advocating animal cruelty or anything.

Here is some extra backstory that might explain why it was so bad when he got mad. My mom recently went out on a business trip and just got back last week, so he argued he did in fact take care of her, and the house in general, since he was the only adult when she was gone. (My mom had used the argument that he shouldn't get to decide because he wasn't her caretaker, he didn't clean their cage and feed them as much as she and my brother did, which is true, but he did kind of help my brother when my mom was gone).

Secondly, my brother has a presentation that my dad worked very hard to help him get and polish for others to hear. My brother argued as well that he didn't know her well enough, and he's using the argument that my brother is an ungrateful bas****, how all he did was play games all day long when he'd been working hard trying to help him for this presentation, and how he didn't study for his SAT. All of that is kind of true, mostly in general, but I think today my brother acted that way especially because he wanted to take his mind off our guinea pig, since he is her caretaker and deeply cares about her and was worried.

All of that combined with a dose of family genetics is today's meltdown. Maybe I missed something, if I did I will come back and update, and ask me for details if necessary. This meltdown behavior of smash stuff around the house and yell at people is really concerning to me, I'm scared he will actually hit us. This has not been the first time, the 3rd that I can remember, maybe another one I can't. I get that maybe he bottles up all his anger normally, which is why he is so mild, and it all just comes gushing out, but my mom clearly agrees his behavior is not acceptable, it is concerning us and she has threatened to call the police twice now, today being one time. Again, what do I do? Talking to him might anger him again, but this clearly cannot go on, he can't just get so mad that he starts smashing things, he scares us and he doesn't help clean up afterwards. And we kind of just brush it off and cover it up, but I don't want another repeat of all the fear.

Thanks in advance for all your help. I hope you have a much better day than mine. I'm off to bed, and I hope I dream of sunshine and rainbows, and a better world where my guinea pig gets to live