Airbnb guests leave their dog in garage; want it back 3 weeks later. 'What should I do?"
"Guests abandoned dog, I want to keep him, they want him back."
ConundrumBum
I manage listings for a family member and one of them is a really low budget place that attracts a lot of low quality people. The latest guests exemplified that by abandoning their dog.
When I arrived, he was in the garage barking. I also noticed he damaged the casing on the entry door from clawing at it so much. They didn't even leave him a bowl of water or food.
My first thought was they were keeping him in there to keep the place clean or something, forgot about him and left. I messaged immediately saying their dog is still here, left in the garage. I received a response of "We know we already left and will not be coming back".
That kind of floored me, and I responded "Am I to assume then you've abandoned your dog here?" No response.
Fine by me. I really hit it off with the little guy. Golden retriever. Probably somewhere between 2 and 4 years old. Very loving and friendly with people. We were basically best friends within 20 minutes. My old dog died a few years back.
I brought him straight home and busted out his old bowls and got him some wet/dry mix. He sleeps in my bed, we go on daily walks at a nature trail, the dog park, meeting all my friends/family.
I thought I had a new dog. It wasn't reported to Airbnb (didn't want some weird policy that I have to do something like call animal control). Tonight (almost 3 weeks later), we get a message saying "Hello we want our dog back. Where was he taken??"
My heart sank, because I don't want to give these pieces of sh*t their dog back to neglect and probably abandon again when they decide having a dog isn't convenient anymore. I really wanted to lay into them, and had this been a more informal arrangement I would have. But, I'm not in a position to do that.
I'm not sure the best way of going about this. I really hate lying to people, but this is a situation I feel like I might sacrifice my morals for the best interest of my little buddy Henry (They named him "Blaze," the poor thing wasn't even named right).
I'd like to say something along the lines of "As you abandoned your dog on our property and did not respond to our last message, we were forced to call another party to remove the animal. We do not know where the animal is."
If they ask who, I'll just say "We called an individual who works with various animal rescues. If you'd like their number let me know." If they say yes, I'll give them a Burner number for my own phone and then tell them the dog was adopted to a family in Maine (all the way on the other corner of the country). Thoughts?
Here were the top rated comments from readers:
Gold-Comfortable-453
I'm sorry, but unfortunately, the dog ran off when I tried to get him to come with me. I would like to be paid for the damage your dog did to my garage. What is your mailing address so I can forward the repair invoice.
Mommanan2021
They will definitely go away if they think they are getting billed. Good thinking.
Any_Huckleberry7805
I think your plan is good. You absolutely should not give the dog back to those horrible people. If Airbnb somehow gets involved you can show that you reached out to the guests to get their dog back to them and they refused to cooperate.
Morrolan_V
This. Under no circumstances should you give this dog back to these awful people.
captain_paws_tattoo
I'd take that dog to the vet to get his rabies vaccine with your info as the owner and have them check for a microchip. If he has one, update his info. If he doesn't, get him one and make sure to register it to you. The vet can help you with all of this.
You have proof of them saying they abandoned the dog. I doubt you would have anything to worry about in terms of ownership. But never hurts to make sure you're solid in that department and the above will help with that.
Holiday-Horse-427
It's very risky to make up this elaborate story with the burner phone. Just say that they said they didn't want the dog and were abandoning it, so you called animal control. Tell them abandoning the dog was illegal and you can't have illegal activity on your property. That might scare them into not pursuing it further.
Don't position yourself as the only person who knows the contact number for the person who took the dog, sending them on a wild goose chase. You want to cut them off asap. Don't post pics of your dog on social media, ever. Take the other posters advice to take him to a vet and establish ownership.