Tenant lied about dog

[Stephanie Gothart]

I've been managing properties for about 13 years and this is a first for me. I screen people really well and everything seemed to check out with this lady. We have a strict no pet policy and explained multiple times about it. Did the lease signing, she signed stating she had no pets. This was all on Friday morning at 9:30, Monday afternoon she called and said she hadn't moved in yet because she didn't know how to handle to pet situation and told us that she had a small outside dog. She is giving me all kinds of excuses like her son will be so disappointed, his dad died last year, her older son potentially may be living with her for a few weeks and he also has a small dog. Just a lot of different information that was not given up front before lease signing. She has asked to be let out of her lease because I told her that she has signed the lease and we've had the property off market for a few weeks now so we aren't giving her the money back. Should I take this as a warning sign that she's going to be a bad tenant and just shred the lease or should I enforce the lease we signed and tell her she can move in without the dog? I'm really torn on this, I don't want to be heartless but she blatantly lied to us at lease signing about the pet.