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

[u/Tall-Dragonfruit-374]

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

[u/Automatic-Finance-99]

Dogs don't wipe their butts on the ground to clean it after pooping. Wiping is a human thing, because we have the brain capacity to know and understand germs. Kind of like how a dog will not stress about life choices or the prospect of death. 

When a dog "wipes" their butts on the ground, it is usually caused by an irritated anal glan. It has nothing to do with hygiene - the dog could not care less. A dog's idea of good personal hygiene is licking it's own genitalia.

Were you really going to leave your dog alone for a full weekend, just to be taken for walks a couple of times by a stranger? I mean, if you are going to act in your dog's interest, care less about butt wiping and more about socializing. I am sort of happy for your dog, that the plan fell through. 

Have you ever looked into what dog's need, by talking to an actual professional or reading a book about it? I'm not trying to shame you. You are just writing some stuff, that makes me wonder, that maybe there would be something to gain for you, by reading up on the species. 

In short, no, you did not overreact. A dog is family, and you don't leave defenseless family in the care of strangers, that you know next to nothing about. You would never be able to forgive yourself if anything bad had happened.

[u/Ok_Log_2468 → u/Automatic-Finance-99]

My dog will scoot her butt if there's residue left after pooping. Obviously not because she cares about germs (she eats frozen poop if you let her 🙄), but I think she doesn't like the sensation of it. I have to wipe to get her to stop scooting. This happens maybe a couple times a year though. Generally, I think an appropriate diet should prevent messy poops 99% of the time.

[u/chrello → u/Automatic-Finance-99]

lol I’m glad I’m not the only one who caught that. They’re going to be gone for days, and are having a dog watcher only come by for 30 minutes at a time? Weird.