Air bnb owner ott or do we deserve to be chucked out?

[Pilloh]

We were forced out of our house due to a water leak in the house. The insurance company said we had to move out due to the severity of the work.

A bit of a nightmare for us as we have a large dog. He’s been called a wonderfully mannered dog by a qualified behaviourist outside the house who really doesn’t care about people/other dogs. But he is a breed used for guarding and therefore very barky at home (we have a command that gets him to be quiet but it doesn’t stop the impulse to bark initially). Not to make excuses, we were working on this with the behaviourist pre-pandemic but our progress stalled so we just manage the situation. Ie we have gates all around our house/garden, don’t allow strangers and the dog to meet inside the house (he’s totally fine with people when they are not on “his” property). Our house is basically Fort Knox and only DH and I are here so it’s all pretty easy to manage.

We told the air bnb owner that please tell the cleaner not to enter house or garden without telling us as dog will run up and bark at strangers. He agreed. We explained the situation and he said he understood.

Yesterday pm, cleaner comes into the garden when I was playing footy - she was fetching something from shed. Dog ran towards her and barked. I gave the recall command which worked initially but then my dog ran back to cleaner and barked. It’s no doubt intimidating. After 20 ish secs dog was in the house and I apologised. Recall is not full proof hence why we never rely on it. We would never have found an Airbnb where we were not assured we would be informed of any person entering the property.

Owner has messaged now saying the cleaner won’t return whilst we are here and that means we have to leave as the owner is not ok with the house not being maintenanced.

Cleaner has visited 4 times without incident as the right procedures were followed.

Who is being unreasonable?

@Pilloh you're unreasonable not to post a picture of the floof!

Mumsnet won't get this. They only like shitdoodles who can't be left alone for more than ten mins because owners are the devil if they do that.

I have an American Akita. I get it. Sounds like you're amazing dog owners. If someone walked in unannounced with my floof, it would not end well. That's why it doesn't happen.

The cleaner has been told and didn't follow process. Probably got comfortable because in past visits the dog was ok. Now they see why they were told but instead of taking responsibility have kicked up a fuss. You're not unreasonable but it is the owners house and they may not get it either. Hopefully, a nice conversation can get this resolved.

Hope your house gets sorted soon. Sounds like a nightmare

You have a large, aggressive dog that you can't control, and the rest of the population needs to just work around this?

They've got to know your 'protocols' and adhere to them perfectly, or they could get maimed or killed. Right.

It's common sense not to just walk in on a dog tho, any dog. If you walk up to a dog you think looks aggressive with all guns blazing, you kind of deserve the consequences.

you kind of deserve the consequences

Speechless. Not really doing your side any favours here, are you?

Not being 10, I don't have a side.

She isn't being unreasonable.

Dog or no dog, the cleaner shouldn't just be walking into an occupied property unannounced.

What if op and her dh were getting busy?

I will say, I agree nobody should just be walking in.
We once rented an airbnb for a week. She text me knowing there was no signal in the area on my network (I had told her) asking if she could nip in and put some bedding in a cupboard for the next guests (2 days before checkout). I didn't respond (no signal) but when we got back later she'd done it anyway. We paid a cleaning fee, just do it then! This is poor form of airbnb owners.

I think a lot of this DOES depend on the breed. We live on a farm. We owned a Pyrenean mountain dog. He was well suited to farm life, but because he was a guardian dog he did bark his head off at someone when they visited until he had met them and verified them as not a threat. He was a smashing dog. Had we had a flood in the house and been forced to live in an Air B and B for weeks with him it would have been pretty disastrous because he wouldn't have suddenly turned into a 'house dog'.

I think a lot of this DOES depend on the breed. We live on a farm. We owned a Pyrenean mountain dog. He was well suited to farm life, but because he was a guardian dog he did bark his head off at someone when they visited until he had met them and verified them as not a threat.

This is what that breed is bred to do (scare off threats and guard livestock), people that think you can just switch off genetics with training don't understand dogs, that's why you need to manage the behaviour. It's like expecting working collies to have absolutely no desire to herd or micro manage. You manage this and find outlets.
Pyreneans are lovely. You sound very sensible. I meet a lot of people that bring this type of dog in to terraced houses on busy estates and wonder why they aren't adapting. Very frustrating.

Oh OP I think you know your dogs behaviour is an issue. I think the dog has obviously displayed quite aggressive and dangerous behaviour in the past and continues to do so. You seem in denial about this, posting snippets of praise for your dog by vets or pet behaviour experts. This is meaningless though, and only proves that your dog has been an issue in the past to warrant this kind of observation. I think you’re kidding yourself, you yourself are unable to control your dog, you keep your house like “Fort Knox” and chose to lie to the owner about your dog biting to highlight the “severity” of the issue.

A dog barking at a stranger in their own home isn’t really a big issue, a dog who can be controlled by their owner when they do this isn’t an issue. I’m guessing your dogs behaviour has gone above and beyond simply barking at strangers. You know it.

Your biggest issue is if your dog escapes one day or someone enters your home in an emergency and you’re not there. Your dog could potentially hurt or kill someone. You need to start training it again.

As for the owner, he was a fool for letting your stay there in the first place with a dog “who bites”. I think he’s reasonable to ask you to leave; the situation has changed and he no longer deems it acceptable.

Nope. Dog has never gone beyond barking. But he’s a big dog and I can appreciate that in itself is extremely intimidating / not appropriate.

Our house is Fort Knox ( ie we have freestanding gates at all exits and paid for solid fence) because I genuinely don’t want to even come close to a scenario where anything bad happened. For everyone’s sake.

@Pilloh I honestly think you should leave this thread, it can't be doing you any good & entirely too many comments are little more than ignorant, snide, intolerant bullying that you do not deserve.

Thanks all, we will pick up training sooner rather than later.

Actually it's just the people providing a paid service need to follow a procedure that they should be following anyway as standard for all guests or they risk getting barked at. Quite the exaggeration you've made.

54% isn't exactly pretty much everyone

Did you quote the wrong person there?

YABU to keep an agressive dog. Everything else is excuses.

@Dinglewoop given how phenomenally anti-dog these threads get most reasonable ppl won't bother engaging, there's no point cos of how nasty it gets, so they become an echo chamber. Everyone in the echo chamber then thinks that everyone ever thinks like them, carefully ignoring the lack of dissenting opinion cos they are, frankly, too vile to deal with no one wants to bother.

I tend to read the op, read all their posts, offer support & move on without reading the comments cos I find it nauseating.

MN would do well to remember that, by any measure, the anti-dog sentiment here isn't reflective of society at large. Also recall the age old adage of 'if you don't know what you're talking about, shut the Fuck up'

Maybe they are robots and not dogs?

My dogs bark at someone at the door. I want them to. I want to know when someone is there and I also want any would be intruder to know I have dogs that bark and may possibly bite them if they come into my property.

The cleaner forgot what exactly? They turned up announced which is rude. OP could have been walking around naked, her and her DH could have been having sex etc.

A good reliable cleaner is hard to find and this Airbnb owner has not found one. Instead they have found an idiotic person who thinks it perfectly ok just to intrude into a place people are staying

OP can't win in your eyes. She is doing everything to stop an incident because everyone who knows dogs, knows if you don't prepare then an incident is likely. What she is doing is good ownership and everyone shoot do it!

I think it’s unfair that you’re being asked to leave after having told LL the circumstances and them accepting what you have told them about the dog. However I don’t think there’s anything you can do apart from be as nice as possible to them and ask for enough time to find somewhere else. Being annoyed with them won’t get you want you want in this situation. I think you need to say, “I’m so sorry if the cleaner got a fright from the dog, I thought that we had made it clear that he wasn’t good with strangers and apologise if we didn’t emphasise this enough. We’re really in a pickle here because we have nowhere to go until the house is finished and it may take a little time to find somewhere. Is there anything we can do to assure you of the condition of the house if the cleaner can’t return regularly? Could I send you a weekly video of the property or show you via FaceTime? Or could we give you a little more deposit to reassure you that we are looking after the house?”

👏👏👏👏 couldn't agree more