Airbnb host divides opinions after 'stealing' dog from obnoxious family

Anyone who is cruel enough to leave a beloved pet behind without any thought doesn’t deserve to have it. This is the thinking of one man who was stunned to discover that a dog had been left behind after its family stayed in one of his Airbnb properties.

After he got over the shock of the situation, he became quite fond of the animal and decided to keep him. However, weeks later the family got in touch to say they wanted their pooch back and demanded that he give him up.

Unsure of what to say, he posted his story on Reddit asking for advice on how to handle things. He explained: “I manage listings for a family member and one of them is a really low-budget place that attracts a lot of low-quality people. The latest guests exemplified that by abandoning their dog.

“When I arrived, he was in the garage barking. I also noticed he damaged the casing on the entry door from clawing at it so much. They didn't even leave him a bowl of water or food. My first thought was they were keeping him in there to keep the place clean or something, forgot about him, and left.

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“I messaged immediately saying their dog was still here, left in the garage. I received a response of "We know we already left and will not be coming back". That kind of floored me, and I responded, "Am I to assume then you've abandoned your dog here?" No response.”

The man went on: “Fine by me. I really hit it off with the little guy. Golden retriever. Probably somewhere between 2 and 4 years old, very loving and friendly with people. We were basically best friends within 20 minutes. My old dog died a few years back. I brought him straight home, busted out his old bowls, and got him some wet/dry mix. He now sleeps in my bed, we go on daily walks at a nature trail, the dog park, meeting all my friends and family.”

Delighted by the turn of events, the man decided not to report it to Airbnb as he suspected there might be a policy about having to take it to animal control and he didn’t want the dog to have to go through that. The happy man and his dog settled into life and weeks went by without hearing a peep from the family.

However, the man then revealed that almost a month later he got a message from the dog’s original owner asking for him back. The man added: “My heart sank, because I don't want to give these pieces of s*** their dog back to neglect and probably abandon again when they decide having a dog isn't convenient anymore.

“I really wanted to lay into them, and had this been a more informal arrangement I would. But, I'm not in a position to do that. I'm not sure of the best way of going about this. I really hate lying to people, but this is a situation I feel like I might sacrifice my morals for the best interest of my little buddy Henry. They named him ‘Blaze’, the poor thing wasn't even named right.

“I'd like to say something along the lines of ‘As you abandoned your dog on our property and did not respond to our last message, we were forced to call another party to remove the animal. We do not know where the animal is’. If they ask who, I'll just say ‘We called an individual who works with various animal rescues. If you'd like their number let me know. If they say yes, I'll give them a burner number for my own phone and then tell them the dog was adopted to a family in Maine, all the way on the other corner of the country.”

After reading the post people were overwhelmingly in favour of Henry staying with his new owner but many couldn’t agree on the right course of action. One person wrote: “Was the message on the Airbnb platform? I’d be tempted to just not respond and see what happens next.”

And another user suggested: “It's very risky to make up this elaborate story with the burner phone. Just say that they said they didn't want the dog and were abandoning it, so you called animal control. Tell them abandoning the dog was illegal and you can't have illegal activity on your property. Don't position yourself as the only person who knows the contact number for the person who took the dog, sending them on a wild goose chase. You want to cut them off ASAP.” And a third person wrote: “You should reply with, ‘dog? What dog?’”

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