Veiled threat in an inquiry re service animal

Thanks Muddy, that’s exactly what I needed. I’ll send a response first thing tomorrow, & wait with bated breath! Appreciate your help!

Use Airbnb’s own language about what is not a reasonable accommodation request. “Accepting this request to book with a service animal would cause me to take on additional responsibilities that are time-consuming, burdensome, and not possible, as defined by Airbnb’s policies, and create a serious safety risk. My dog will not tolerate another dog in the home, and I cannot separate the dog as it is a homeshare. There is a risk of dog fighting and injury to one or both animals, as well as to owners attempting to stop the animals. I cannot move out of my home with my dog during guest visits. I cannot afford to board the dog somewhere else and give up my dog’s companionship as a routine business procedure during guest bookings.”

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This is great! Thanks so much for your help. It does seem that @muddy was on to something with homeshare hosts having different rules regarding animals, but there must’ve been updates that I missed🤷‍♀️

I haven’t had enough coffee this morning! I thought the AirBnB wording you quoted was about requests in general, not about accessibility. I guess that reveals my distrust of AirBnB, thinking they would publish something this guest-centric about any request.

If you want to keep the place pet-free, that’s good for the next group who are looking for places that are pet-free. If the next guests might be allergic to animal dander or dog slobber, they expect to find a place without those things. I would not respond if I were you. Some people make their living out of lawsuits.

The guest already screwed her. Now it’s a matter of her getting Airbnb to unsuspend her listing.
And although it makes sense to us and to other guests with allergies, Airbnb doesn’t accept “keeping the place dander-free” as a valid reason to decline service animals.

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And add to the message: “I clearly explained this to the guest. I do not understand why they would want to risk their service dog’s, and their, safety.”

Bet you this is a companion animal, not a legit service dog. No service dog owner would put their animal at risk like that.

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Airbnb has clearly lost their way. If they had real customer support instead of people that have not been trained to help hosts and guests and suspend for no reason these things would not be happening.

Rules change constantly and none of it is helpful for hosts or guests and we’re supposed to keep up with their unhelpful changes.

I’m no longer a host and I’m going to reconsider using Air when I travel. They have screwed over what used to be a decent way to stay when one travels.

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Truer words were never spoken! We have to jump through lots of hoops when dealing w/ Air, & I think more and more hosts are divorcing them due to their insane business practices.

Guess the headline is no longer “veiled threat” as they made good on it but getting your listing suspended. I’m so sorry.

This has made me do a couple of additions to my listing today as we adopted a dog 3 months ago and it is animal reactive – meaning cats and dogs and definitely squirrels LOL. So I’ve added copy in the description and house rules. Since we are a homeshare I think that will make a difference.

Lol, I needed that laugh! Yes, I added language to my listing that I thought covered my bases, but apparently not. Read & re-read those “What we allow” sections. I hope my big win will be that I am a homeshare w/ less than 4 units, thus exempting me from fed & state laws.
Good luck w/ the pup- my problem child is 7 now, & obviously isn’t going to change!

Yeah, I’m hoping we can get some improvement with a lot of time and work, but our trainer said the window for socialization is when they are pups and this one is approx a year old. The story is an elderly man owned him and then died…so my guess is the dog didn’t get around much as a pup.

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Yeah, this is almost certainly Fifi the companion animal. But, I understand the need for companion animals just as much as service dogs- just not in my house! :unamused:

That’s exactly what Airbnb is worried about. The guest could sue Airbnb. They don’t care about the host.

I have to be honest that my first reaction was that if I were a guest, I would not want to book into a home with an aggressive, alpha dog. Do you make that clear on your site?

Her dog is territorially aggressive with other dogs, not humans. My dog was like that, too. Lots of my guests fell in love with her because she was sweet and gentle with people,and even other animals (she wasn’t a cat chaser, and one time had a bird in her mouth and when I told her to drop it, it flew away), but wouldn’t abide other dogs on the property. She would jump them and stand over them with her teeth bared, growling, letting them know it was her territory and to get out. She actually didn’t even bite them, but you expected to see blood and fur flying, which would have been a bad scene with a guest who brought a dog.

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@pat, I know, I feel the same way. She is a very loving & affectionate dog around people. As we have 2 dogs, she is the Alpha, which is normal canine behavior. Some dogs she is fine with- runs & plays like a puppy. Others, she can be aggressive towards :woman_shrugging: We can’t predict how she is going to respond to another dog, & I don’t need the liability of allowing ANY other animals into our home.
The gist of this thread was more around the inquiry from a guest who (quite probably) reported me to Air for discriminating against the disabled.

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My dog was exactly like that. She seldom was aggressive with other male dogs, but almost all female dogs she asserted herself over. Yet there was the occasional female dog she left alone and one or two small male dogs she was aggressive towards.

She used to terrorize my neighbor’s female dog, until one day when I went over to visit and they had an empty dog food bag next to the door, on its way out to the garbage. Their dog attacked mine, ripping a piece of skin off her leg, defending the dog food bag. After that, my dog waited for permission from their dog before trying to enter their property and never terrorized that dog again, even when they were both out on our country road.

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I realize I was somewhat off-topic. As someone who does not allow dogs because I have a fear of them, this is something I would definitely want to know so I could make my own choice about the matter.

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If you don’t allow dogs, I advise paying special attention to this thread. It’s been an eye opener for me! I really thought I had all of my bases covered, but…. :woman_shrugging::unamused: