Backstory: My husband and I are new (by almost two years) to our area - we moved here so he could attend dental school. He goes to school full time and is an Italian immigrant (relevant). Shortly after moving, we met a woman (50s) in our church who is also originally from Italy and she was delighted to meet, talk and associate with another Italian. She invited us over for dinner twice as she is quite proud of her cooking and hosting. She seemed very friendly and also a bit lonely as she only has one son in college, with whom she is not close, and she has mentioned that she feels the other ladies in the church do not welcome her. The last time we went over, she talked a lot about her dog who is like a child to her - in fact, she spoils him by making him a hot cooked meal of human food every night. She also had a friend over with his dog and so we mentioned our own small puppy. She expressed disappointment that she hadn't told us to bring him and our puppy didn't socialize with the other dogs. She said her dog gets lonely and she would love for the two to have playdates.

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A few weeks later we needed to find a sitter for our dog over the weekend before Christmas. For previous trips, we had once asked another family in the church (whose kids loved our dog) and another time a classmate of my husband's - both who watched our puppy for free. However, this time we thought of her, especially with her love of dogs, we thought she would enjoy having extra company over the holidays. When we asked her she seemed enthusiastic and said yes. We coordinated a time to drop him off (and provided all his food, crate, leash) and pick him up 5 days later. When we picked him up, she said everything had gone fine, he's house-trained so no accidents, she just said he was more energy than she was used to.

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Then one week later she messaged my husband saying she "didn't think she would have to do this" but telling us we owed her $200 and she would accept payment either by Amazon/Whole Foods gift card, or email. We were shocked. Maybe we were naive but the previous sitters had watched our puppy for free as a favor and we knew them much less well. My husband asked why she expected payment and also hadn't mentioned it earlier. She said that it was obvious that pay would be expected from the work she did and that she had other friends whose pets she had watched and they paid her. For her, a friendly favor is taking out your dog once if you are late coming home and it "did not cross her mind" that we would ask this for free.

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Ultimately we told her sorry, we would not pay her as we have previously left our puppy with other friends for free and that was our expectation. She said she was "disgusted" by our behavior, that she thought we were "different people" and we should be "ashamed". But, she never mentioned payment \*at any time\* when we were coordinating details, not when we originally asked her, not when we dropped off the pup, and not even when we picked him up and we feel a little manipulated that after the fact she is now demanding this high price, especially as this sort of expense does vary quite a bit. As I mentioned before, my husband is a debt-ridden dental \*student\* so we are a little taken aback that she thought our first choice was to drop $200 for dog-sitting without discussing prices beforehand. Honestly, if she had messaged us saying that she thought there would be some compensation and left the price open, we wouldn't mind sending her $70 for her trouble but her first message demanded compensation and even payment details! So AITA for refusing to pay her??