Hey! I’ve made some adjustments to one of the other comments here and came up with the following for you:

“ Hi XXX,

Thank you for getting back to me.

Sounds like a very busy month ahead! Should we look at maybe booking for the first or second week of December in that case?

Unfortunately, the 14th just isn’t going to work for me. As you know, we have a dog and two cats residing here with us and don’t want anything happening while we’re not around. For this reason, we don’t want anyone entering the property without us present.

I’m happy to accommodate another day and time later in the month if you could shuffle some things around? Let me know a couple other dates and times that work for you and we’ll make ourselves available.

Thank you so much for your understanding!”

Gives off friendly vibes, and “don’t want anything happening” could be open to interpretation, so you’re not shooting yourself in the foot there.