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We accept dogs and are happy to have them and haven’t had any major clean-up or repair issues due to them. However, more and more frequently people come with dogs and then leave them there for hours and hours at a time and the dogs bark nonstop. I live upstairs, so my whole family has to listen to it, plus I feel terrible that the dogs are so unhappy they feel the need to keep on barking.
Usually after two hours or so I will message the guest an FYI and ask if they want me to check in on the dog or anything. Sometimes they apologize and come back, sometimes it’s silence. Either way, this usually doesn’t stop them from leaving the dog home alone again and treating us to more barking. To date, I haven’t dinged anyone in the reviews because without the dog they’d be lovely guests and they probably don’t bring the dog everywhere.
Our theory is that these are pandemic dogs that haven’t been left alone in a strange place before and try to give guests the benefit of the doubt, but I will never understand why people bring their dogs along on a trip just to leave them at the apartment to be miserable the whole time. But I feel like lecturing future guests on their life choices is probably not what they’re signing up for.
Anyway, this time around it’s a repeat guest that didn’t have the dog the first trip, and I kind of want to say, hey, you can come back, but not with that dog. Anyone have any good pre/during/post dog barking messaging strategies to share?
Try adding to your listing that you are delighted to host dogs and that you provide doggy treats, a dog bed, special pet towels, etc, etc. but insist that the animals should never be left alone in the rental.
Most responsible dog owners will happily comply. And most responsible dog owners wouldn’t want to leave their dog unaccompanied anyway,
Say it.
" Hi XX, Thank you for wanting to book here again- you are a welcome guest, however, not with the dog unless you agree to take it with you each and every time you go out. While we are pet-friendly, your dog barking incessantly the entire time you are out is an untenable situation that we are not willing to endure again. (The dog would also be much happier being boarded at a good dog boarding facility than being left alone, obviously distressed).
We have changed our pet policy to include dogs not being left alone in the unit if they are barkers. (Yours hasn’t been the only one.) Not only do humans have to be good guests to be welcomed back, dogs do, too.
Please let us know what you decide."
I agree with @jaquo the easiest way to get around this is to add to your house rules that dogs should not be left at the listing by themselves. It’s not fair to their pets or to you as the host living upstairs.
I hope this message finds you well. Thank you for choosing our Airbnb property for your recent stay. We appreciate your business and hope that you had a pleasant experience.
I wanted to reach out to you regarding your furry friend that accompanied you during your stay. While we understand the importance of pets to our guests, we must ensure that our property remains comfortable and accommodating for all visitors. Unfortunately, the barking from your dog caused a disturbance that was not in line with our policies and caused inconvenience for us and our neighbors.
In the future, we kindly ask that you refrain from bringing your dog to our property to avoid any further disturbances. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and appreciate your understanding and cooperation.
Thank you again for choosing our Airbnb property, and we hope to have the pleasure of hosting you again in the future.
It could be that. And if a host doesn’t have a pet fee or any rules about leaving the dog alone it’s almost a no brainer.
It could also be they miss their dog when gone. Most pet owners do leave their dog alone all day while away at work. So it wouldn’t be odd to bring them along to only have a few hours of companionship each night.
Definitely all dogs >not only “non - barker” should not be allowed to be alone in any pet friendly space, as per the listing rules and written details. Host that allow dogs left alone will rue the day they did it one too many a time and got destruction.
I would make the rule or communications more direct and less wordy, myself.
Oh yes, the rule should be less wordy. My example was meant to address the case of the host’s specific repeat guest who is asking to book again.
Not all dogs bark, howl, whine or cause destruction when left alone. My dog would wait quietly if I went out, even in a strange environment. I know this because I was once on a road trip, left my dog in the hotel room to get something to eat in the little onsite cafe just down the hall. One of the people I was caravaning with had two little foo-foos, and we could hear her dogs yapping their heads off in the room across from mine, but mine was silent.
And although my dog was really territorial at home and would bark at every person and vehicle that passed by, neighbors told me she didn’t bark like that when I wasn’t home, even when I went on holiday and had a friend come to house and dogsit. So her barking was about protecting and warning me specifically, not the property, nor distress about being left alone.
Of course a host can’t know if a dog is a barker or destructo ahead of time nor necessarily believe the dog owner, so I guess a blanket “no dogs left alone” rule is best.
So say that in the review: their dog barked incessantly but that they were lovely guests otherwise.
If someone else had said that in their review then you wouldn’t have been dealing with them in the first place. You would have seen that they have a barky dog and not accepted them. Wouldn’t you have appreciated knowing before you booked them? Isn’t that the entire point of writing a review?
A guest’s pets should always be mentioned in the review, whether good or bad. Give the good pets some public credit so it’s easier for them to book again. Call out the troublesome pets so that hosts can make an informed decision.
I have a house rule that says that dogs must be approved which allows me to ask guests about their dogs if I feel I need to, e.g. if they don’t have reviews mentioning that their dogs were good guests.
One of the questions I ask, when I ask, is, “Is Fido particularly 'barky”? The warning woofs are not a problem at all but there will be other guests across the hall so excessive barking/whining would be an issue." On occasion, someone (and their presumably barky dogs, lol) just disappear at this point and that’s fine with me. I have a 4-unit house and cannot have incessant barking in the house. And the others who end up staying have already been “warned” so I don’t have any issues.
Btw, when you mention the dogs in the reviews, which I hope you will commit to doing, it’s particularly useful to use the names of the dogs “and their dog Tucker was a great doggie guest”. I got tricked last year because the dog mentioned in many excellent reviews had been replaced with a different dog, that did not get an excellent review. (That was my bad. I could’ve asked but didn’t. Live and learn, lol.).
It was an extremely barky dog and the best part of it is that the guests didn’t go out. They were sitting in there with the dog letting it bark it’s head off the whole time. Then they left a review saying that our place was so great, blah blah, but that it isn’t the best place if you have a dog that is sensitive. (I suppose by sensitive they meant dumbasafukingrock) Never saw that coming. Nothing is foolproof but it does help to vet the dogs 99% of the time.
FWIW, I don’t have any rules about not leaving the dog in the listing alone. That hasn’t been a problem for me.
Can you not just let guests know that the policy of not having dogs left alone is a recent local ordinance? Or a new requirement of your STR insurance company due to claims (from other hosts)? Or that your HOA has amended its policies to avoid dogs being left alone?
Or you could say that you recently had a dog that caused a lot of damage. And this has caused your business partner /spouse / neighbours / A N Other third party to insist that you revise your dogs policy?
If you put the onus on the third party with a teeny tiny white lie you appear to be a much more gracious host.
I’m sorry @jaquo but those are all completely bizarre and not even remotely believable (and also easily verifiable).
The only thing worse than being lied to is being lied to as if you’re dumb.
Lots of hosts have a house rule that says that dogs cannot be left unattended. If a host doesn’t want dogs to be left unattended then that is the solution. There’s no reason to make up a lie unless you’re just trying to scare people on purpose
Well strangely, a few years ago our HOA amended the rulebook to say that guest dogs (owners’ dogs being grandfathered in) must not be left alone in rental apartments.
This was due to complaints from neighbours about barking dogs. A year or so later the HOA banned dogs in rental ap[artments altogether because of one dog that had caused substantial damage to window treatments in a neighbouring apartment to my own.
Sorry if that isn’t remotely believable but it’s exactly what happened - I don’t make things up.
Yes, I’m pretty sure that I’ve mentioned it here many times before.
I have a friend who has rentals about seven miles from where I am. Her city recently added the following to the local ordinances:
It shall be unlawful for any person or the owner or anyone having charge, control or custody thereof, to keep any dog within the corporate limits of the city which howls, yelps or barks excessively so as to disturb the sleep, peace and quietude of any inhabitants of the city.
It might not be odd, but doesn’t it seem selfish to leave a dog alone all day just because you enjoy its companionship when you are home, if doing so means the dog is distressed all that time?
Of course, not all dogs experience anxiety about being left on their own, and a dog owner wouldn’t even realize the dog was distressed unless someone told them the dog barked or cried all the time in their absence.
I had some new neighbors move in behind me about a year and a half ago with a dog. The people are sweet and their dog wasn’t problematic. But then they got another dog, a puppy, and the dogs had unending bark and howl fests every evening, locked in the house, when the owners were at work. I recorded it and played it back to them, they apologized and came up with a workable solution.
But they never would have known had I not alerted them, as there are no other neighbors close enough to be bothered by it. And they are good dog owners, so were upset that the dogs were so distressed and developing bad habits, aside from it bothering me.
Don’t get me started on the selfishness of dog owners disguised as love for the dog.
I just don’t find it odd for someone to bring their dog even if must be left alone hours at a time. It’s quite possible that there is nothing back home that is suitable to them. As someone on the boarding end of this discussion I assure you that an average dog left alone in a rental is better off than many other situations they could find themselves in.
I tip my hat to hosts who allow dogs, because I would never have the patience to put up with the inevitable pet-owners who insist (sometimes belligerently) that Fido behaviour that is intrinsically inconvenient or annoying somehow – because it’s their dog – isn’t inconvenient or annoying.
Not only that, Airbnb actually encouraged what many of us would consider unwanted dog behavior- remember when their “Pet friendly” category on the homepage was a photo of a dog on the bed with pristine white linens?
About as tone-deaf to hosting issues as their TV ad that portrayed a child jumping up and down on the bed as if it were a trampoline.
Never saw that coming. Nothing is foolproof but it does help to vet the dogs 99% of the time.
