Good intentions don’t always look kind in the moment, especially when they end in tears.

So, what would you do if a sweet little kid asked to pet your reindeer, but you knew that saying yes could risk their health?

Would you bend the rules to see her smile? Or would you gently refuse, even though it made you feel awful?

In the following story, a reindeer handler finds herself in this exact predicament and sticks to the rules.

Here’s how it played out.

We’re not a petting zoo. Or, alternatively, how I made a 5 year old girl cry.

My husband and I work on a reindeer farm during the holiday season.

This involves transporting the reindeer, answering questions, setting up and tearing down portable fencing, and other various things.

This particular day, we had been at a local garden store and nursery, and it was time to tear down the fencing.

Now, this fencing isn’t particularly hard to tear down, but for the safety of both people and the animals, we have two fences separating people from the reindeer.

There’s a 3-foot-high white picket fence, and about a foot in from there is a 5-foot-high red metal fence that the reindeer are actually enclosed in.

Along with the reindeer in the enclosed space, we keep bedding, food, and water. They have space to walk around, but if it’s a particularly cold day, the reindeer just lie down and sleep.

As they were leaving, a little girl came up out of nowhere.

So our time is up and we’ve put away the white picket fence. I enter the red tall fence and attach a lead rope to the halters of the deer. We are now ready to head back into the trailer and head home!

Out of nowhere, I hear a soft voice behind me. A little girl, no older than five, says, “‘Scuse me? Can we pet your reindeer?”

She’s looking at my reindeer with earnest. Her mom and dad are standing behind her, waiting for my answer.

Dang, I know they’re going to hate my answer. Our policy is that no one but the reindeer handlers can touch the reindeer.

The little girl couldn’t help but start crying.

One reason is that the insurance rates on petting zoos are terribly high, and there are a lot of regulations, like you have to have a hand washing station and all of these other things, which we just don’t have.

The second is that the area we live in can get cold in the winter, but it’s not the reindeer’s preferred climate. Because of this, the reindeer is more susceptible to illness.

There are also a lot of whitetail deer in our area, and they can carry diseases that are particularly fatal for our reindeer. So, no touchy unless we say it’s okay.

I look back at the little girl and say, “I’m sorry, honey, but we don’t really want people to pet the reindeer. They can get sick easily, and we don’t want them to be sick for Christmas Eve, do we?”

Of course, she starts bawling her eyes out. I look at her parents apologetically, and luckily, they seem to understand. They didn’t try to argue or anything. I really, really lucked out there.

Aww! It’s easy to see why she said no, but it’s too bad she couldn’t just make one exception.

Let’s see how Reddit readers feel about what happened here.

This reader feels bad for the kid.

Here’s a parent who offers reassurance.

According to this comment, she handled it well.

As a dog groomer, this person gets it.

She definitely did the right thing! If you break the rule for one child, who knows how many others will notice.

If you liked that post, check out this one about an employee that got revenge on HR when they refused to reimburse his travel.