It’s an act of good friendship to pet sit from time to time, but it’s a whole other thing when you realize your friend may not be the best pet parent.

What would you do if you felt you could give your friend’s pet a much better home than they could? One guy recently shared with Reddit how he took a matter like this into his own hands. Here’s what went down.

AITA For not giving back a dog

A friend of mine (38M) asked me to care for his puppy as I had a yard.

He had to move short notice and wasn’t able to keep it at his place he was temporarily staying.

He said it would only be for a couple of months and he would cover the cost of me looking after it.

Seems like a fair compromise.

Puppy was 6 months old.

Fast forward to a year later, he finally moves somewhere that allows dogs (it’s not a great environment for a dog, but he’s allowed to have it there).

He asks for it back.

Something about that doesn’t feel great.

By this point the dog has fully become part of our family – everyone loves him – so I asked if we could buy him instead.

During that year he never visited him or contributed financially like he said he would and didn’t even ask about him.

I brought him over for a visit once or twice he said hi and pat him and that was it.

A dog deserved to live somewhere where they’re loved.

Recently he is getting back on his feet.

He then asked to take the dog back immediately (on the same day be moved in to his new place), I asked if he could stay a bit longer to give things time to settle and hopefully convince him to let us keep him.

He didn’t take that well and ended up angry and verbally abusive towards me.

There was no world in which this would go smoothly.

We were close and now that created a rift in our relationship.

He ultimately agreed to sell me the dog for a agreeable price but now it’s weird between us.

AITA?

Seems like it’s not clear who exactly is in the doghouse here. Let’s see how the good folks of Reddit weighed in.

Most folks were sympathetic to the dog.

And didn’t seem to care much for the friend.

One person proposed a reasonable solution.

Another showed some nuance.

But most people took away a simple truth.

He’s taking “man’s best friend” super seriously.

If you liked this post, you might want to read this story about a teacher who taught the school’s administration a lesson after they made a sick kid take a final exam.