A couple booked and stayed for the weekend. Did the meet and greet and noted to myself that the husband had some vision issues. On Sunday they checked out and when I came in to do the turn over it was obvious that a dog had been in residence. The amount of dog fur on the timber floors was unbelievable. There were drifts! Extra vacuuming time, called in the pro carpet cleaners and the dog had obviously been on a couch. My review of her marked down on cleaniness. When she read the review she contacted me to bleat about the mark down, as they had picked up in the garden. I have no problem with a seeing eye dog staying, but feel that they should have informed me, as a courtesy that the dog was coming and that it should have been kept outside on the covered verandah. Mine is an outside pet friendly stay.
Am I justified is being unimpressed?
Guide dogs are not kept outside, but they normally don’t get on the furniture, either.
Well, it’s certainly nice if they inform you, but real service dogs, as it seems this one is, don’t have to be disclosed per Airbnb policy. And if someone needs a seeing eye dog, I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect it to be kept outside- maybe he needs the dog to get from the bedroom to the bathroom safely or navigate around the house in general.
Seeing as how the dog was a heavy shedder, and your listing does indicate outside dogs only, it would have been respectful for them to ask for a vacuum cleaner to deal with the bulk of the hair themselves before checking out.
If there was a bunch of hair matted on the sofa, then the dog likely was up there, but as someone with a heavy shedder dog myself, I can tell you that my dog’s hair would appear on every surface if she stayed in the house, regardless of whether she was actually on the furniture.
If they left the house clean aside from the dog hair, and considering they did clean up the dog poop, I would probably have just private messaged her to let her know that while you realize this was a true service dog for someone with a disability, it would have been appreciated if she had made a effort to deal with all the dog hair inside, and not allow the dog on the furniture, considering that while you are dog-friendly, it’s stated that normally dogs are to remain outside.
The problem is that mentioning it in the written review means that if she’s so inclined, she could report you to Airbnb for discrimination, as we’re apparently supposed to just accept whatever mess accompanies a service dog.
It wasn’t an Airbnb booking, but VBRO, so nothing written in the review …just stars.
If they had told me, I would have asked what the usual habits of the dog and supplied some old sheets and had a conversation about the dog being inside and my preferences to it being outside.
It just came over as being very entitled and disrespectful. We had multiple text and phone conversations prior to the booking and it was not mentioned once.
Since you have a dog-friendly listing, perhaps you should add some wording to your listing description and your booking message indicating that while you are dog-friendly, that pertains to outside dogs only, so if anyone is coming with a true service dog that needs to be inside with its master, while you realize it isn’t necessary for a disabled person to disclose their service dog, it would be very much appreciated if they did, so you can provide them with some coverings for the furniture, etc.
According to Airbnb, guest with emotional support pets or pets for the disabled, do not need to notify hosts because it would be an infrigement of their privacy. This is what I was told by Airbnb when I called about a guest that had an emotional support dog. I was also told that if I canceled the reservation, it would be considered discrimination and as hosts we cannot charge a deposit just in case the pet causes damages to the property. Luckily I had no issues, the dog turned out to be a perfect angel.
The rules about service animals do NOT apply to a shared listing.
I guess she couldnt see the hair shedding…
Good point. I share rooms in my home and had to tell Airbnb that one of my family members has a dog allergy so they said they would allow me to say no dogs. I recognize that some support animals are not dogs but I’ll deal with that. They gave me an impression that they were making an exception to a policy.
If I see a dog friendly home, I’m going to stay there with my two cattle dogs. They have never spend a night outside - not in almost 15 years for one and 10 years for the other. I would change your listing to No Pets.
As I make my coffee and a random (out of thousands) dog hair floated into the grounds. And I vacuumed yesterday!
With a guide dog, it wouldn’t matter if I was listed as No Pets! It was more that they didn’t tell me and just assumed that it was ok to leave such a mess of fur. A conversation was all that was needed.
The OP said that her listing info states that it is an outside pet friendly stay. There is nothing wrong with that, and no reason for her to change it to No pets.
It’s no different from a home-share hosts offering kitchen usage, but stipulating that only light cooking, sandwich-making, microwaving, etc. is allowed.
My dog is accustomed to being outside most of the time, and sleeps outside- she much prefers that to inside. So if I were looking for a pet-friendly listing, it would actually be one of my criteria that there was a safe outdoor area for the dog.
Just because your dogs have never spent the night outside doesn’t mean any pet-friendly listing has to cater to that.
If a listing says it’s child-friendly, does that mean it has to have a bathtub because a child may never had had a shower before, only baths, and might be freaked out about standing in a shower?
But can it be outdoor-child friendly only?
If it is a service animal, including the emotional support animals, the host guarantee will cover damage caused by them. They added that in January.
I’m sure a lot of hosts would be happy to switch to child-friendly if the parents were willing to kennel them 
That’s good to know. Thanks : )
This 100%. My only frustration is people who try to bring along their “emotional support cat”. They know the system and how to game it. I’m 100% happy to accommodate a person who has real needs.