Woman keeps leaving pet at random office thinking it's dog day care - and staff love it

A dog owner was left feeling embarrassed after she mistakenly left her pet at a random office, thinking that it was dog day care centre - but the staff love it. She didn't make the mistake once, she kept dropping off the pet week after week.

An office worker took to Reddit to share how she originally ended up watching over the dog. When she figured out what was happening, she decided to not clear the dog owner's confusion as she enjoyed spending time with the furry animal.

The office worker explained that her office allowed dogs and they kept dog food and water bowls at the front door. She said, "Of the six of us who worked in the main office area, I was the only one who didn’t have a dog (no pets policy at the apartment) and always felt horribly left out. To make matters worse, across the way was a doggy day care."

One day, a "very frantic" woman came in with "an absolutely massive basset hound". The woman asked her if she worked there. When the Redditor said yes, the woman asked, "I wasn’t sure if you took walk ins but I read online I could just drop him off? I tried to call but no answer."

The Redditor wrote, "I didn’t know what she was talking about at that point and I said 'Come again? Who did you call exactly?' Thinking if I could just saddle her off to whoever she came to see, I wouldn’t have to decipher her problem."

Before the Redditor was able to understand what was happening, the woman explained how "something urgent" had just come up and she needed to leave her dog in someone else's care for a few hours.

The office worker said, "She said 'Well it doesn’t matter now. Look, something urgent has come up and I really need to leave him here. Here’s his food he likes and I’ll be back in a few hours."

She continued, "At this point I wasn’t thinking of the doggy day care - I thought maybe she was a friend of someone here. I said 'Well alright, can I get your name please?' And she said her name and then asked if I needed her to sign anything and I was so confused at this point I just said 'Why would I need you to sign something'” And she left almost immediately."

The Redditor took the dog named Otis and made him comfortable till his owner returned. "I was worried she wouldn’t come back, but at the same time, my wish for an office dog had been granted," she said.

She added, "Otis was supremely chill. All he did all day was lie around and drool onto his own ears. I just freshened him up every now and then, took him out every couple hours, and he was happy as a clam on a big cushy dog bed we thankfully had an extra of. He just loved attention from anywhere he could get it. At the end of the day the woman, thank God, came back. She said 'Thanks, you’re a lifesaver. How was he?', and I said 'He was a champ'."

The officer worker further said, "I was about to say 'But why is he here' when she said 'That's a relief. Most kennels say he gets anxious around other dogs. I heard you operated at a much higher capacity, I was thrilled to see you had so few clients in the room at one time. So, how much do I owe? That’s when I realised she thought we were a dog day care."

The Redditor should have corrected her but she loved her day with the office dog and "did want to get paid for supervising this strange dog all day". So, she just said, "That’ll be £20."

The shocked pet owner asked, "Really?", making the office worker think, "In this very high tone, and I couldn’t tell if I’d overshot or undershot."

The dog parent paid her and left. The office worker returned to her desk while laughing about the unusual situation.

Well, this was not the end of the story.

The dog owner returned the next week stating how her service was "more affordable and less overcrowded than her other place."

The office worker "was glad for the company so just took him. I didn’t think there was any way she couldn’t have at least some idea we weren’t a dog day care. The whole ordeal was so strange I just figured 'don’t question a good thing.'"

Soon, Otis was being dropped off two, sometimes even three or four days a week.

"I was in heaven. He was such a love. And he made fast friends with the delivery guys and visitors. One day we took our office Christmas card photo and Otis was over that day so we included him in a Santa hat. It was pretty great," the Redditor said.

She added, "But it turns out Otis’ owner was friends with one of our clients who I guess happened to have the card out on her table or was kind enough to display it alongside her other holiday cards. Because one day Otis’ owner came in holding the card and walked up to me and said 'I can’t even believe I’m asking this but... is that my dog in this photo? This isn’t a dog day care at all. This is just an office, isn’t it.'"

The Redditor wrote, "She said it with a note of surprise, as though she was looking around and putting it all together for the first time (no coincidence that this was the first time she wasn’t in some crazy rush either.) She was like 'Then who are all these other dogs?'"

The officer worker then explained. She was terrified that the dog owner was going to demand her money back or take some sort of legal action against the company for misrepresenting themselves as a dog care business or complain to the company.

"Instead she basically said 'Why didn’t you ever say anything!' And I explained we just really liked having Otis around. She stopped for a minute and seemed to be thinking and said 'Is that right?'. I said yes and told the story of how I was the only one in the office without a dog so loved the company," the Redditor wrote.

The pet parent asked another employee at the office if the story was true. The employee backed up the Redditor.

"So she said 'Well, I wish you’d said something sooner. Could’ve saved me a lot of embarrassment with my friend back there. Alright, I have to get going. See you at 4pm.' She left Otis! I couldn’t believe it. I said 'So he can stay?' And she replied 'Where else could I find someone to watch him one-on-one all day for £20?' And off she went," the Redditor said.

"Otis stayed my office dog until his family moved away, luckily right around the same time I took a new job," she concluded.