How do I (25F) ask my (28M) boyfriend to be better with my dog?

I don’t know how to bring this up with him and everything I’ve tried has been met with defensiveness. He says he loves our dog (pup, 2yo german shepard) and “tries his best” and I know it’s true, but he just does everything wrong with him and it’s driving me crazy.<br><br>For example, the other day our dog was being protective of me (growling, barking, showing teeth) and my boyfriend, trying to help, physically got in the dog’s face to “check on” him and literally could’ve been bitten. No matter how much I tell him not to do that, he insists on doing it anyway because my dog “knows and loves him and would never bite.” It’s not the case and it makes me so anxious when he does that.<br><br>I’ve also asked him repeatedly to not leave the dog’s food on the floor. The dog will eat and then barf up part of his food and then eat that barf and then barf up that barf and eat it again.. and it’s disgusting. My boyfriend has to literally see and hear my dog barf everywhere and still leaves the food on the floor.<br><br>We took our dog to the vet for his check up and our dog was acting scared and shaking. My boyfriend had to literally drag and pull our dog through the vet to get to the exam room. Our dog started barking and growling and I just watched my boyfriend make all these mistakes and drag our dog through the vet and I felt so bad for our dog. I told my boyfriend he has to be more patient with him and not touch him when he’s trying to hide behind me, and to just give him time to get comfortable. My boyfriend got mad at me and accused me of making him look bad in front of the vet and said I was making our dog a “baby.” Same thing happened at dog training and I just don’t know what to do.<br><br>TL;DR my boyfriend is bad with our dog and I don’t know how to tell him without starting a fight.