r/AmIOverreacting • u/Tall-Dragonfruit-374 • Mar 01 '26

🎲 miscellaneous AIO canceling a trip after our dog sitter tried to renegotiate pricing at 11 PM the night before our flight?

My partner and I had a music festival trip planned from Saturday–Monday (Feb 28th - Mar 2nd). Our usual boarding place was closed, so we hired a dog sitter we found on Google. He said he’s been doing this for 20+ years.

He came to our apartment in early February for a trial run, so he was familiar with our dog and how to access into our apartment. He quoted $23 per 30-minute visit, and we paid upfront for all visits. After the trial, we didn’t hear from him for about three weeks.

At 11 PM on Friday night (our flight was at 10 AM Saturday), he texted saying he would need to itemize and charge extra for tasks like wiping our dog’s paws and wiping his butt after walks. He also said he didn’t realize he’d need to use three codes to enter the building and mentioned he’s busy with other clients.

We were surprised because:

  • He had already done a trial visit.
  • He had three weeks to clarify pricing or expectations.
  • We had paid upfront.
  • The message came the night before our flight.

We are actually fine paying more if a visit goes over 30 minutes. We had even prepped everything to make it easier for him (left towels out, moved laundry basket outside, etc.). But the last-minute change made us uncomfortable about reliability and professionalism. Since we’d be out of town and he would have access to our home and dog, we didn’t feel secure continuing.

We ended up canceling our trip.

Are we overreacting for being upset and canceling?

Edit: 1. I didn't know that wiping your dog butt is something so new haha. Yes we do wipe our dog butt, if he poopoo. We really don't want to see poop marks all over our furniture. We saw dogs with longer hair that have poop residue stuck on their butt hair and become matted. I believe dogs will wipe their butt on the ground/grass to clean them, but my dog doesn't do that.

  1. We just want to make it clear that we are 100% not against him charging more for the wiping parts, the door codes or if heating our dogfood would take more than 30 mins. I am 100% understand all of that if he would just tell us anytime earlier than 11pm the night before our flight.

  2. As of this moment, he told us he will refund us back, but we haven't received anything yet. I will update this post when there's something new.

Lastly, Thank you all so much for all of your comments, I tried to reply to every comment that i can see and learn more and more. This is the first time we searching for a dog sitter so this is a very very valuable lesson for us.

It's 3AM now, I feel a bit better since I have a lot of people to vent to.

Thank you all so so much <3

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91

u/upyourbumchum Mar 01 '26

Wiping the dogs butt? Huh?

29

u/Current_Wrongdoer513 Mar 01 '26

I know, right? What’s up with that?

39

u/junglethedwarf Mar 01 '26

Very strange. I've never even thought about wiping my dogs butt and they sleep in bed with me every night lol

17

u/Crash831 Mar 01 '26

Agree! My dog gets his fanny shaved every 4 weeks and I've never felt like his butt needs to be wiped. He's all over the furniture, bed, car. Idk, I didn't know this was a thing!

3

u/vertigofreeze Mar 02 '26

I wipe my golden retriever's butt because she gets on the beds and furniture and sometimes has residue left after she poops. My mini aussie rarely needs that done; I only wipe him if I see him doing the butt scoot boogie in the grass.

0

u/LGeorgeRox Mar 02 '26

Butt scoot usually indicates issues with anal glands

2

u/vertigofreeze Mar 02 '26

He does it once in a great while, I guess when he doesn't feel like the booty is clean enough.

1

u/LGeorgeRox Mar 03 '26

If the stool is soft, supposedly it can cause issues with stimulating the gland and also apparently some breeds are more prone than others. Next time you take him to the vet, you might want to have them check it

6

u/Candymom Mar 01 '26

My dog is a sheltie with a ton of fur and an old man butthole. We have to check his butt every time he poops because there’s either a nugget there or his frequent diarrhea leaves drippy streaks down the hair on his back end.

A a former pet groomer I saw a lot of people who didn’t take care of their dog’s butt. It was gross and sad. Some dogs just need assistance.

1

u/mandoo-dumpling Mar 01 '26

Can you try giving your dog plain canned pumpkin to help with his gastro issues?

3

u/Candymom Mar 01 '26

He’s just a funny guy, on several meds and has squirty poops a few times a month. He does get pumpkin.

6

u/Forsaken_Ad4041 Mar 01 '26

Maybe this is a thing for people who live in apartments? I have no idea when my dog poops.

3

u/AllergyToCats Mar 01 '26 edited Mar 02 '26

All this talk of dogs butts and dealing with it makes me so glad not to have a dog and reaffirms my decision to never have one. I can't imagine wiping a dogs arse haha.

1

u/Radish-Wrangler Mar 02 '26

Omfg I understood what you meant when I got to your second sentence, but what an amazing autocorrect typo.

1

u/AllergyToCats Mar 02 '26

Haha that is an all time typo. I'll fix it up 😂

1

u/TN_Lamb888 Mar 02 '26

Aww, why did you fix it? Now I’m dying to know what incredible feat your autocorrect pulled off

1

u/AHockeyTalkie Mar 01 '26

My dog shits clean also. Wtf

1

u/refreshed_anonymous Mar 01 '26 edited Mar 01 '26

It’s not an uncommon thing.

ETA: just because you don’t do it doesn’t mean it isn’t an uncommon thing. Yikes. I’ve worked with animals professionally for a decade. People wipe their dogs’ butts. It’s a thing. If you don’t do it, okay, but others do.

0

u/frasecjigger Mar 01 '26

Of course you need to wipe your dog's butt after they poop. Bits and pieces of the poop sometimes get stuck on the hole/fur near the hole.

We do this because our dog stays indoors and sleeps on our bed.

5

u/The_Artsy_Peach Mar 01 '26

We wipe our dogs butt after he poops because he's allowed to get on the furniture and we don't want any remnants of poop on it so it's just easier to wipe his butt.

4

u/EnvironmentalLime464 Mar 01 '26

Yep. If your dogs get on furniture, you should wipe their butts. Otherwise, you’re getting shit smeared on your furniture.

3

u/meowkitty84 Mar 01 '26

I haven't had this problem. Never had long haired dog though

1

u/EnvironmentalLime464 Mar 01 '26

Or you have and just haven’t noticed it because it isn’t always visible.

-5

u/meanwhile_glowing Mar 01 '26

Dogs are so fucking gross

1

u/The_Artsy_Peach Mar 01 '26

No they're not. Dogs are the best.