Okay, so we just came back from a 2 week trip to Colorado. We stayed in a few airbnb's along the way and overall had a good experience. However, one night we stayed in a small house on a working horse ranch. They had several dogs and when we arrived the owner showed us around and the dogs were very friendly, jumping up on our kids for rubs and rolling over, etc. The owner tells us that the dogs are mostly friendly, but ome of them is a 'covid' dog that was mistreated---a family adopted him during Covid and then mistreated him badly. His sister is a breeder (Corgi) so she took the dog back from the family and sent him to the farm. He mentioned the dog had already "nipped" a few people since he had been on the farm but they were trying to train him to be social. We warned our kids to just stay away from the dogs.
Our 15yr old girl went out to the car a few minutes later to bring in bags. One of the dogs ran up to her and laid down in front of her. She knelt down and petted it then got up and walked away. As she walked away, the dog ran after her, jumped up and bit her middle finger. It broke the skin in multiple places and she nearly passed out from pain. After we got the bleeding stopped, we decided that we should probably take her to urgent care to make sure it didn't need stitches and for them to do a more thorough cleaning of the wound. At the UC, they did make us fill out a dog bite form. I think that is mandatory with any animal bite. They decided she needed a tetanus booster and antibiotics. The dog was up to date on shots, so we did not worry about it having rabies. They did not stitch because it can cause worse infections with animal bites (they need to be able to drain) but they did butterfly bandage the worst spots and debrided it.
The farm owner was not around whem the dogbite happened, but we did let the main farm hand know. We got a quick note from the owner saying he was sorry the dog bit her and that the dog would leave the farm tomorrow.
The next morning , we completed our scheduled horse ride (well, everyone but my injured daughter) with the farm hand. The owner was back at the farm when we returned and he asked how she was doing. He also made a couple of comments about it being her fault that she was bit....that he had told the kids not to pet the dogs. We mentioned that the dog actually didn't bite her when she was petting it...she chased her and bit as she was walking away. I asked if the owner would be willing to cover the cost of the UC visit but he was not willing to do that. He did refund our nights stay ($100) and gave us half off the horse ride ($90) i appreciate that, but I feel like thr UC visit should also be covered by him considering he knowingly allowed a dangerous dog around guests. The dog should have been penned up or placed in another section of the farm away from guests. The bite plus tetanus shot and antibiotics made my daughter so sick and queasy (multiple vomiting episodes) that the entire second half of our vacation was kinda ruined. It has been a werk and she still has limited mobility in that finger but it does seem to be healing okay.
Is there a way to file a claim through Airbnb without punishing the actual owner? They have a really cool setup and would have really enjoyed our stay otherwise. It was just a poor lapse of judgment on their part by having this dog around guests. We haven't received a bill yet from UC, but I expect it to be around $600. I don't plan to mention it in my review because they did get rid of the dog.
What are my options? Should I just let it go?
