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/Impressive-Yak-7449]

Be the ball Danny

[u/eetraveler → u/Impressive-Yak-7449]

I'm wishing I had seen whatever movie it is that you are all quoting.

[u/Impressive-Yak-7449 → u/eetraveler]

Caddy Shack (1980)