Woman snaps and quits dogsitting gig after woman 'insists' she let dogs lick her face.

People are understandably precious when it comes to their pets. And when you're tasked with caring for someone's pets, you're bound to deal with all their individual eccentricities around petcare.

For the most part, this is fine and to be expected. But there are times when the expectations far outpace what's realistic or doable.

In a popular post on the AITA subreddit, a dog sitter asked if she was wrong for quitting on the job.

She wrote:

AITA for being 'rude' to the dogs of a lady I'm pet-sitting for, and yelling at her?

I [24f] am a pet-sitter and recently got a client who needs some regular pet-sitting as she goes out of town for the weekends sometimes. She has 6 dogs. Very friendly dogs. After my second weekend there, she called me and thanked me but said she was 'concerned' about one thing she saw on the nanny cam footage. I thought of what I could have done wrong...

She said that when I sat down on the couch and all the dogs were trying to get on me and pant and slobber in my face that I 'turned away' from them and tried to nudge them away. She said it was important that someone not turn away from her dogs when they show excitement since she wants to encourage them to be friendly.

I said 'Oh...so basically I should let the dogs breathe and slobber in my face when they want to?' I thought she'd see the absurdity of it but she basically just said 'yes, exactly!' Seeming to think nothing of it.

The next time I went over she had me sit down on the first step of the staircase with all the dogs around, and one predictably started licking and panting into my face, and she sort of laughed and said 'See don't turn away, he likes you, you'll learn to be fond of it!'

I did my best to hold my breath but after all the dogs had their turn I was ready to puke...I held it in as best I could until she was out the door and then gagged and felt sick for half an hour. The next visit the same thing happened and this time I did wince and turn around, which she got upset at.

I told her that their breath stinks and I can't take it, and she got offended and said that they clean their teeth and it smells exactly as dog breath should smell, and that a real 'dog person' would embrace that and accept their affection. I ended up yelling 'stop trying to get me to smell your dogs' breath you weirdo' and storming out, probably leaving her scrambling to find someone else for the weekend to cover.

I am sad to lose a consistent high-paying client but I just couldn't take that anymore... I told a friend about it and he said 'Well she does have a point that you can't act all averse to dogs and turn away from them in that industry' but I just thought there's a big difference between showing enthusiasm for dogs and for their breath...

AITA?

TL;DR I didn't let a woman's dogs pant on me as much as they seemed to want to, she seems to think that makes me unfit to work with them

This post inspired a lot of spirited opinions.

LeoSolaris wrote:

NTA. That is exactly the opposite of training a dog to be appropriately friendly.

That-Face-1375 wrote:

NTA. Turning away from dogs is actually the best way to reject unwanted behavior.

imothro wrote:

NTA. You're being hired to care for the dog's basic needs like food, poop and walks. You're not being hired to make love to her dogs. You had every right to draw a stern boundary and leave. When you work for yourself something that you learn quickly is that not every client is reasonable and sometimes you need to walk away from unreasonable clients.

feioo wrote:

NTA AT ALL. Dogs lick each other's faces and mouths to show submission and affection, but do you know what a dog will do when it doesn't feel like being slobbered on? Turn its head away or use its shoulder to redirect the other dog. Do you know what they do when the licking dog doesn't listen?

Growl, snap, sometimes even bite the other dog's face (not hard enough to injure) and hang on for a second. That's how dogs say F**K OFF I MEAN IT and even that doesn't usually last for long. It will not cause the dog to stop being friendly. Boundaries, especially personal boundaries, are very important in canine communication.

They often have an implicit understanding of it because their own mothers will growl and snap at them for crossing the wrong boundaries, even when they're just teeny little rolly pollies. Dogs generally (and should) understand a 'no.'

In fact, I would say it's unhealthy for dogs - especially that many in a pack - to not have personal boundaries regularly enforced. I would refuse to consider sitting for these dogs if the owner insisted I let them walk over my boundaries.

No-Permit8239 wrote:

ESH. You have a very difficult, unreasonable client, but you handled that in an extremely unprofessional way. Sarcastically saying 'Oh...so basically I should let the dogs breathe and slobber in my face when they want to?' was incredibly unhelpful, telling them their breath stinks, calling her a weirdo, all unprofessional, rude and unhelpful. Here's how you should have handled it:

'I apologize for the miscommunication about what my pet-sitting services do and do not entail. I make sure their food, water, and exercise needs are met, and during that time I interact with them according to my philosophy towards dog handling.'

'This philosophy centers on dogs needing humans to be dominant for them to make them feel secure, and that involves humans displaying calm assertive energy to the dogs and positively reinforcing calm submissive behavior from the dogs.'

'I don't reinforce overly excited behavior from dogs, which means ignoring dogs when they try to jump up on me. It's really what is best for the dog's well-being and making them good canine citizens.'

If she reacts negatively toward that, tries to argue with you, etc., simply say 'I see that we have different philosophies about how to interact with dogs, so perhaps you'd be happier finding another pet-sitter with a philosophy that is more compatible with yours.'

Soulless2186 wrote:

God I hate dog people. NTA.

OP is NTA, the client was clearly being unreasonable and not setting her dogs up for success in the world.