Because it’s partly her mistake, too. If she wanted her pet to stay in a place where he was kept entirely separate from all other animals for his protection and someone watched him like a hawk every single minute he wasn’t locked in his kennel, she should have taken him to a place where they have the resources to do that instead of leaving him with someone who has a dog and things to get done in the evenings. She chose to leave her dog with the OP, either because she didn’t want to come up off the money to board him, or because he’s not up on vaccines to board, or because she wanted him to be free to interact with people and other animals instead of being locked in a kennel most of the time, or whatever her reasoning was. She made the decision to leave her pet in a situation where he would be roaming the house with another dog an people wouldn’t be right on top of him every second. Her risk, her responsibility.
Lord knows I wouldn’t have offered to pay a single damn cent of any vet bills if my lab mix had managed to put a few holes in my sister-in-law’s barking rat last Thanksgiving. She was the one who brought her dog to our house uninvited and unannounced knowing that we have two large, territorial, protective dogs who greet everyone at the door. She was the one who chose to let the damn thing run at the very end of its retractable leash and barrel through the door right on top of my dogs. Her stupidity, her risk, her responsibility.
You feel that the fact that she was dog-sitting is irrelevant, right? It is a simply that the owner of the dog that did the damage should pay regardless of the circumstances? (It’s not a loaded question; I am genuinely curious.)
That response came across more strict than I actually feel; I can’t say that I could really take that hard a line in practice. It does mean something to me that the OP was doing a favor for her friend, and so I do think it behooves the friend to volunteer to put up for part of the costs. But both parties accepted the risk of a fight, and the OP’s dog was he one who did damage, so I guess I do see the OP as being more on the hook here.
This is just academic noodling on my part, though. Again, I think they handled it the way good friends should, with generosity on both sides.
From my perspective (and outside the context of the OP) all dogs fight. If you let your dog around other dogs, then you have to expect that sooner or later there will be a fight and your dog might get hurt. Since you know this, it seems too much to ask the other owner to pay for this. It is just goes with the territory. Especially since which dog gets hurt is random; it could have just as easily been either or both dogs.
And if you want to be fair, shouldn’t the dog that ‘started’ it bear the brunt of responsibility? And how do you determine that? How could you possibly know which dog-signal set off the fight?
I’m not arguing or anything; just thinking out loud.
Obviously if an owner was negligent that would be another matter.
I don’t have a dog, but if I asked someone to pet sit my cats, I would be and feel responsible for any and all damage suffered by and caused by them. Someone shouldn’t suffer because they are doing me a favor. The favor shouldn’t require them to change their entire lives or put them out in any significant way. If it does, that’s not a favor; that’s a job and they should be compensated for it.
Everything my cats do is my problem and my responsibility.
