I have a client who wants to book me for 8 nights of boarding over a holiday. Her dog is dog-aggressive so I won't be able to book any others. Am I better off to decline ?

You could also charge them a higher price to offset the cost of not being able to take in any other clients. I personally would suggest this route since you haven't gotten any bookings yet for those dates. It would suck to lose out on that income and then not have any other bookings to fall back on, or to only have a couple of those 8 days booked. Especially since you're new it's really important to build up a clientele base.

Losing income from two other dogs over a holiday period can be substantial and is something you should not have to do to accommodate this client's dog. However, at this point, you don't have any other bookings. You could explain the situation to the client and offer to do drop-ins instead. They may not go for it, especially because their dog would be alone all night for a substantial period of time. You could also suggest they look for a sitter who only takes one dog at a time and doesn't have a dog of his/her own.

There are dogsitters on Rover who have no dogs of their own and who only accept one dog at a time. I would recommend this client to search for them.

I wouldn't take a dog with aggression issues if you are not an experienced trainer who knows how to safely handle such animals. What would you do if You encounter another dog on a walk? Is the dog only aggressive towards dogs? Do they display resource guarding? Can they be handled safely? Do they bark a lot? Often aggression comes out in more than one way. Unfortunately some owners downplay issues their dog has so that a sitter will accept a booking. They drop the dog off and then jet out of town for the holiday for 8 days then you find out on day 2 that there are a lot more issues than the owner let on . Then youre either suck with that dog for the whole booking or you have to cancel and make other arrangements for this dog (which will probably be very difficult) and you miss out on having any bookings for that holiday. If the holiday is in the near future try lowering your rate to attract customers and potentially be able to book more than one. If it's far enough out just wait, people often book last minute. Whatever you do please don't book this dog then down the road when you get other requests for the same holiday, cancel this booking so you can accept the newer ones. That's not fair to do to someone, leaves the customer in a bind and is very unprofessional.

Please consider you will likely be getting more requests for Holidays as it approaches so if you know for sure the dog is dog-aggressive I would likely not accept. I have only had one dog I consider dog-aggressive, I separated him from my dogs and he was unhappy and destructive to property so it was not worth it financially or otherwise . I do take one pair of dogs that are territorial which I consider different from dog-aggressive but still a safety concern, when I accept these dogs I block myself from accepting any other clients. I find it worth it since it is the fee for 2 dogs and usually a long stay min a week. Since the dog is territorial they can meet/hang out with my dogs in the backyard with no issues, inside they are both crate trained and listen really well so that helps a lot I leave crate open but if he growls even a little its back to the room he goes and then I will close the crate for a little while. (So maybe if the dog is crate trained it can work but realize most dogs will want to be with you especially dog-aggressive dogs seem to love people so this may not work if they do not get enough of your time and they will get anxiety they should be crate trained by their owners don't try to crate train yourself unless you are a trainer).