Friend asking for dog food 'compensation'

[dogbiscuitsareforlife]

What do you make of this.

One of my school mum friends, (I'll call her Mary) has a dog and we often bump into each other out for dog walks and walk along together. Not super close, but chatty and friendly

Last week Mary told me she had been let down by a dog sitter for a holiday. She couldn't find anyone so I offered to help. Our dogs get on well and I'm used to having more than one, although at the moment only have one. She asked how much I'd charge but I said no bother just provide his usual food and treats, which she did. Her dogs food is a superior top end brand to the food I give mine.

All was great whilst we had him, but when feeding, the dogs seemed to favour each others food and swapped between bowls. I didn't think too much of it but did mention it to one of the other mums at the school gates in a jokey way, saying my dog obviously preferred the more expensive brand to the supermarket stuff I provided. Whereas her dog really liked the cheaper stuff.

Mary has obviously been told and today asked me if I fed my dog her dogs food. I was a bit taken aback but explained the above and of course I did give her dog its own food but sometimes dogs want what the other dog has.

She was very cold and told me to compensate her for any tins I gave my dog as she wasn't there to provide for my animal! I'm totally bemused, I saved her £100's in dog sitting fees and although I'm not now going to charge her she must see she is totally unfair.

Or am I wrong and should I buy a pack of 4 tins to give her. My DH says ignore but I don't want bad feeling.

I’d hand her the tins and tell her: “ I’m really sorry you’re upset that the dogs decided between themselves which food they wanted to eat. I’m also really sorry I offered to help out a friend who turned out to be quite unpleasant and ungrateful in the end. Live and Learn! ”

Do not give Mary any dog food, she is a CF. You kindly looked after her dog and she is behaving terribly. No good deed goes unpunished, some people are beyond the pale.

I completely agree with this! 👆👆

Wow. People are unbelievable.
Do not give her anything.

WOW people are awful!

I'd just say 'I did not give my dog any of your dogs food but I'm pleased you've brought up compensation - I was thinking maybe £10 a night so you owe me £70. Just whenever is fine though, no hurry!'

Even if I were going to reimburse her, it would only be for the price difference between her food and yours, not for the entire lot.

I'd actually just message her saying "lol, are you really asking for money from someone who did you a massive favour for free?" And let her respond to that how she wants.

I agree. I’m shocked how many think this CF should get anything.

But reading some of the posts, it’s easy to see how entitled CF’s get away with their piss taking behaviour

I pay £550 a week for dog care. I would be invoicing her and removing the cost of the food off

Please don’t give her any dog food. Her behaviour has been appalling. Next time you see her I would smile say hello and say I hear you’ve been moaning about me…. And leave the silence hang. She will either say oh no etc or she will moan about the food. In which case you smile even more sweetly and say I saved you hundreds of pounds in kennel fees…and you haven’t even bothered to gift me a bottle of wine. Yet you moan that the dogs ate each others food…. And have the cheek to ask for compensation. There’s one of us definitely being very cheeky have you worked out which one yet? And walk.
And if any of the other mums bring it up just laugh and say some people are so blooming cheeky aren’t they…

In this circumstance I’d tell her you are shocked she wants you to pay for food for her dog. You did feed him, it’s not your fault he preferred your dogs food and you did look after him at short notice when she was stuck.

I wouldn’t offer anything to her.

I also would not be chatting at the gates with any of those school mums again about anything remotely personal. Clearly they like to gossip about people.

If you give her the tins of more expensive food then effectively you caring for her dog has cost you money….shouldn’t it be the other way round!

I think I'd tell her to grow the fuck up. One of the horses at my school escaped yesterday and ate one of the livery horses feed. We just used some of the school horses feed for the livery horse.

The owners laughed it off. Certainly didn't strop and demand two scoops of calm and condition and half a scoop of linseed in compensation.

Animals are like kids, their friends packed lunch is always more appealing and sometimes they do this.

Don't give tins, give truth.

Text.

"Hi there. I know you saw me yesterday but I wasn't ready to talk to you. I have to tell you that I feel pretty shocked by the last interaction we had. I took your dog on good will, as a friend.... you know you would have been paying at least £30 a night for a dog sitter, yes? I loved, cared, walked and played with your dog and made sure he felt secure and at home whilst away from his humans. I made a joke to someone about our dogs preferring each others food which is pretty common when dogs get the chance to eat in new places, and that comment made its way back to you and caused you to want to CHARGE ME for the few bites of your 'superior' dog food that my mutt ate?

The cheek of it caught me off guard which is why I avoided you, but we have been good friends till now, so I thought I would put my grown up pants on and tell you that I'm pissed off and hope you can see why."

Never in a million years would I be giving her dog food back. I would tell her she’s being ridiculous, it’s impossible for me to police which dog is eating what and I did her a massive favour. If she wants the food back that she thinks your dog ate she needs to give you the food her dog ate of yours. It’s pathetic I would not pass the time of day with her again it would piss me off so much

Did the ungrateful cow not even tell you when she normally feeds her own dog or how much 🙄 just left you to crack on & guess?? I wouldn't joke with that group of mums again either - they sound like trouble tbh. & definitely don't ever offer to dog sit again for her!

I'd send her an invoice for the dog sitting and the next time I saw her chatting to one of the other mums, call out, 'I hope she's not asking you to dogsit - she's a very ungrateful person!'.

But then, she would have put me in the mood for a stand-up row so I wouldn't be too bothered about any upset. There are days when you really need to let someone know how you feel about them.

I pity the dog.

I would be tempted to give her the tins and an invoice for dog-sitting with the total fee, discount of 100%, total owing equals £0.00.

It's a shame you didn't feel up to saying anything to her-that you hadn't deliberately fed the dogs each others food.

You'd seen them do the occasional swap.

Shame the other Mum thought it was worth a mention.

Shame the dog owner has made so much of it.

They must both think badly of you.

This.

You need to say something because otherwise she could interpret this as you avoiding compensating her. And FFS don't give her the food

it feels unbelievable that people are so entitled but it happens all the time. I had DC's school friend over one afternoon after school and the little girl handed me a box of grapes "Mummy packed these for an afternoon snack". We had a lovely afternoon - I took them to the park for a bit on the way home from school, we had miniburgers for dinner and the kids played nicely (they are 5). The mum collected the girl at 6pm and that evening I got a message that asked if the kids had eaten the grapes. I had forgotten about them (they were in out fridge) so she asked if I could walk over the next morning to drop them off as "fruit is pricey and the kids could have it with lunch". I was like, no, I can't walk 20mins to drop off a box of grapes. Maybe just write off the loss of £2 since I provided you with 2,5hours of free childcare AND your child's dinner.

Please don’t give her any dog food!

send her an invoice for dog sitting with a deduction of 4 tins of dog food

This is the right response imo

Unfortunately if she didn’t have enough sensitivity to show appreciation for your kindness there’s no way she’ll read your mind. Someone will need to spell it out loud and clear to her!