Doing a friend a favor is one thing, but in this story, one pet sitter began to believe his friend purposely set him up to fail for her own selfish reasons.

The story started like this: a man flew across the country to celebrate a mutual friend’s birthday and ended up talked into extending his stay to watch his friend’s puppy while she left on vacation.

What he was not told was that the puppy had serious separation anxiety, had never been crate trained overnight, and was a high-energy working breed living in an apartment.

Four days of no sleep, constant barking, and a dog that refused to let him rest past 8 AM later, the picture became very clear.

His friend knew what she was sending him into. She just did not say so until it was too late to matter.

You’ll want to keep reading for this one.

AITA? My friend asked me to watch her 6 month old puppy for 6 days while she was on vacation. A lot of info was left out and I could barely sleep 4 hours a night. I told her I need space.

I live on one side of the US, my friend lives on the other. We’re both 30.

I was flying over to her city to celebrate our mutual friend’s birthday.

This soon came with a pretty big request.

During the dates I would be there, my friend told me she had a vacation booked for half the week and asked me to stay longer to watch her puppy.

She has only had the puppy for 3 months — it’s a 6-month-old, 30-pound puppy.

This wasn’t just any run-of-the-mill puppy.

A breed meant for labor and extensive physical activity, not for docile apartment living and crate training.

All information I’ve learned in hindsight.

So only after accepting did he realize the full extent of this favor.

During the 4 days I was with her and the dog before she left, I noticed a lot of concerning things in the way she was training and disciplining the dog.

I also learned that she had given up overnight crate training and that I would have to sleep in bed with the puppy.

He did his best to take good care of the puppy, but it wasn’t easy by any stretch of the imagination.

Long story short, this puppy had major separation anxiety from my friend, and having barely known me for 5 days, did not want to listen to me.

I was instructed to only have him out of the crate for 2 hours at a time, as he needs 16 hours of sleep every day.

I followed the directives I was given, and he did not stop barking, banging, biting, destroying property, going to the bathroom all over the apartment, and more poor behavior.

Sleep was a whole other ball game.

He would not sleep through the night either.

I’d put him down after dinner, he’d wake up a couple hours later, and then when I would try to go to sleep, he would bark at me, bite me, and jump on me for hours before letting me sleep.

It was typically 4 AM by the time he relented, and then he would bark me awake at 8 AM every morning, and after being fed and walked, would not let me go back to sleep.

When he did let me sleep, he would either lay down right on top of my feet or on my face.

I woke up many times throughout the 4 hours of sleep with him suffocating me or hurting my feet.

He let his friend know what a nightmare the puppy was, but there wasn’t much she could do from afar.

I kept my friend updated every day.

She expressed how sorry she was, but that was it.

He’s beginning to think that his friend misled him from the very start.

After the first night she told me she expected this — but she never told me any of this before asking me for this favor.

Afterwards, she swore she had no idea this would happen.

On my last day, I told her that he had not let me sleep through the night once.

The friend does agree to modify her trip, but the damage is already done.

I was watching the puppy for half the time and then flying back to my coast, and her other friend who lives in her city was watching for the second half of her vacation.

She decided to cut her trip short and fly back in time so the other friend wouldn’t have to stay overnight with the dog.

That’s when I told her I don’t want to talk for a while.

Never Miss a Story

Sign up to get our BEST stories of the week straight to your inbox.

I’m angry, I feel taken advantage of, misled, and ultimately sacrificed as a friend.

AITA to feel this way and for the stance I took with her?

Sounds like some space is definitely needed after this nightmare ordeal.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a man who was totally humiliated when he learned the real reason his friends had ditched him.

What did Reddit think?

Puppies are cute, but many people don’t realize how much work they actually are.

The puppy’s limited activity could have contributed to at least some of the sleep issues this pet sitter described.

This friend’s puppy clearly needed professional care.

This friend wasn’t clueless — she was purposely dishonest.

There is a real difference between asking a friend for a favor and engineering a situation where they have no real choice but to say yes after they have already flown across the country.

Let’s review: the friend in question knew the dog had separation anxiety. She knew the overnight crate training had been abandoned. She knew what kind of breed she had and what that meant for anyone trying to sleep in the same room. And she shared none of that upfront.

So even after apologizing daily and cutting her trip short, the damage was already done for this pet sitter.

One thing is for sure: this friendship is going to need serious repair after this.