Can anyone help with advice re re-homing please?

[hiccymapops]

We've got two beautiful dogs that unfortunately we have to re-home (our two year old has very bad asthma, and his doctor has advised we eliminate all potential triggers) We really don't want to separate them, they're 6 and 7, and have grown up together. They're terrific with children, I have a 4 year old, 2 year old, and a baby, they're even terrific with the cat ( which also needs a new home) We've been in touch with cavalier rescue, and they did put us in touch with a couple that would be interested, they sounded perfect when we spoke to them, we said we would e-mail some photos, but we mislaid their contact information, so we thought they would get back in touch with us, but as they haven't, I don't think they can have been that interested. Sorry for waffling on, but I'm finding this really hard, and I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction of finding somewhere that will find a good home. Do I just phone local re- homing centres? Are there any places that would try harder to find them a home together?

Thank you for reading.

[Scuttlebutter]

Hi Hiccy, please get back in touch with Cav rescue - they will be able to see if the couple concerned are still interested. In these circs, i suspect they didn't want to hassle you/appear to be rude - I wouldn't rule them out at this stage. Even if that particular couple are not the right adopters, a specialist breed rescue will probably be your best option,particularly as you want the dogs to stay together.

[DooinMeCleanin]

Personally I would insist that your son is allergy tested before rehoming your dogs. I have asthma and I am allergic to many things, but not dogs. Imagine how you will feel if your rehome your lovely dogs and find out that they weren't a problem at all?

I have no idea why doctors don't allergy test as routine in asthmatic children anymore. Once you find the triggers it is so much easier to control the asthma.

[Scuttlebutter]

Dooin, that's a very good point. DH has asthma. He is very allergic to cats, horses and long haired dogs, but manages pretty well with our three greys. That's also because we take a very aggressive line with cleaning - wooden floors, lots of damp dusting, regular, frequent hot washes of bedding, soft furnishing etc - a lot of the asthma newsletters etc give good advice on housekeeping to minimise dust and allergens and we've found this to be very helpful. OP, is this something you've tried already?

[hiccymapops]

We have been back in touch with the rescue centre, the lady answered us a few days later saying she'd left messages for the couple, but they didn't get back to her, so she thought they'd lost interest too.

I have asked about the tests while he's been in the hospital, but the doctors seemed very reluctant, saying that triggers can change all the time. Should I have pushed harder? I must admit, he's been in hospital a few times now, and I have asked the consultants there about the triggers, and our gps and they have all said the same. The general answer seems to be it's better to be safe than sorry, and if anything helps my sons asthma even a little bit, then at least I know I've done all I can.

[hiccymapops]

Yes, I'm doing all that, constant cleaning ongoing! I used to love put rugs too....

[hiccymapops]

Our rugs!

[DooinMeCleanin]

Yes you should have pushed harder. It really does make all the difference when you know the cause. Sometimes Asthma is not allergy based at all and the trigger is something completely different such as the weather, exercise, colds and flu.

From what I read recently you seem to need to kick up a fuss to get the tests. My triggers have not changed at all, but my asthma has become milder/better controlled and I am able to be around some of the things I am allergic to wthout it being too much of a problem.

Dogs are not, generally, one of the more common triggers. My sister and I coth have allergy triggered asthma and niether of us are allergic to dogs. Cats shed more fur and tend to be a more common trigger, along with dust, pollen and feathers.

There is also something you can spray on the cats and dogs to lower the amount of dander they shed, but I cannot remember what it's called, petal something I think.

Of course your son is important and you need to make sure his asthma is controlled, but I wouldn't want to see you rehome your pets, if you didn't need to.

Scuttle's advise about contacting the breed rescue was probably the best option if you do think that rehoming is the only option, otherwise post your rough area and we might be able to point you in the direction of some good local rescues.

[Spamspamspam]

Interestingly my husband is also asthmatic and is allergic to pretty much anything but not dogs, pup has been with us 4 weeks and he did get a bit wheezy in the first few weeks but he put that down to pollen and not the dog and he is fine now.

[hiccymapops]

Thank you. I think I'll have another word with the doctor this week, I know when I last spoke to him about it, he said the tests were quite intrusive and wouldn't definitely confirm anything, so I didn't push it. But at the time I was upset at the thought of getting rid of the dogs, then I felt guilty for worrying about them over my sons health!! Can't win with my stress head. We're in Yorkshire.

[DooinMeCleanin]

Intrusive? They prick your son's skin with a teeny tiny needle and rub some allergen on the pricks to see which ones react. They're not intrusive, unless they have changed since I had them

I don't know any rescues in Yorkshire as I am in Teesside, but Many Tears seem like a good rescue and rehome throughout the the country. I have seen them advertise pairs on their site that must not be seperated before, so you could try them.

[chickchickchicken]

i have asthma and so does my son. mine has got worse as i have got older and my son's has got better. when ds was little his asthma was very severe, although it is still on the severe side it is a lot better than it was.

it seems to be very common for docs to say get rid of pets. i can understand this if anyone is truly allergic but if not it seems unfair for the entire family and pet that they feel forced to part company when actually a pet can bring a lot of comfort to the family especially when someone is poorly

my son is allegic to cats, pollen, dust, feathers. he can now be around cats but we couldnt have one living with us. we had various allergy test and he never tested allergic to dogs. i actually think they have helped him. eg when he wasnt well enough to go out to play he would play fetch with the dog, when he wasnt well enough to even move around he would stroke the dog. it does seem a shame to rehome without knowing he is allergic although i can fully understand the panic when your child has asthma

around the house we had vinyl or wood flooring (found vinyl easier to clean) no curtains, only roller blinds in the window recess so minimum dust. asthma covers on all bedding in the house inc our bed, spare bed, dogs bed. the dogs had plastic beds with pillows covered with asthma covers that we could take off and wash at 60c

if you do decide to rehome could breed rescue help with another potential rehomer? do post whereabouts you are and maybe someone could suggest a local rescue.

have you been in touch with Asthma UK? we found their advice invaluable. there was a recent talk with an Asthma UK doctor on mumsnet. i posted a question and found the advice very helpful. maybe you could read through the thread in case someone asked about allergy testing? (would do a link but dont know how)

[hiccymapops]

Is that really all they do?! It sounds like the doctor was just trying to fob us off, my dh has just said he thinks it's because they didn't want to do at such a young age. I will push it now though.

Thank you for your help

[chickchickchicken]

i think the doctor is fobbing you off saying the tests are intrusive. my ds has asd and hospital visits are a nightmare sometimes but even he didnt mind the tests.

i totally understand the feelings of guilt and confusion wondering what to do for the best to just make the asthma easier for the child. i remember the terror too, far worse than when my own asthma requires hospital treatment

i have only ever heard positive things about many tears rescue if you decided to go down that route

on the other hand is there a relative or friend they could stay with for a short while to give you some thinking time or whilst you wait for allergy testing?

btw we tried various allergy testing - nhs, private, and complimentary ones. interestingly they all showed the same allergens despite their being contradictory advice over which ones are more accurate

[hiccymapops]

I'll have a look for the thread. That's one of the things that is so heartbreaking about rehoming the dogs, it's our asthmatic son that will miss them the most, he adores taking them out.

[chickchickchicken]

hiccy - x posts. yes agree it sounds as if you are being fobbed off

• there not their in last sentence

[hiccymapops]

Thank you again everyone, I never thought to question the doctors. I thought it must be really hard to find the exact triggers. I'll be a woman on a mission at the gps this week.

[DooinMeCleanin]

Good luck.

[musicposy]

Are you at a specialist allergy clinic? I do wonder if you've been badly advised. My DD1 has extremely severe allergies, including asthma, eczema, hay fever, a life threatening peanut allergy, allergies to grass, horses, pollens, penicillin, moulds, dust mites, chestnuts, bananas and you guessed it cats, and dogs.

Every time we go to the hospital for testing (they keep her under their eye very regularly as she is such a severe case) she comes up as extremely allergic to dogs and cats. Yet we have 2 dogs and a cat. The hospital know this and encourage it. They've said you develop immunity to your own animals (we know this to be true as she was very ill when she got both the cat and our younger dog but we persevered; it took about a month).

They also said it can help you react less badly to other people's animals. We also know this to be true; when she was young she was so ill at a friend's house with horses and cats she once went into anaphylaxis. Since having our dogs she copes in other people's houses much, much better. She has only had one instance of anaphylactic shock since getting any of our dogs, yet she went into anaphylaxis numerous times beforehand; I depaired of her reaching adulthood.

I would keep the dogs; I think getting rid of them could possibly put him in more danger at other people's houses. However, I really think you need specialist advice from someone who genuinely knows what they are talking about, not just the bog standard GP.

[sassylassie]

I think the reason you're being fobbed off about the allergy tests is sadly because they're expensive for the surgery. Not good that you've been told they're intrusive though when that's absolutely not the case. Totally agree with everyone else here - stand your ground and insist.

[Ishani]

I would go private to find out the cause, in the long run you need to know dog or no dog in case it's something you can easily avoid.

[TheMonster]

I hope you manage to get your DS tested. As others have said, don't rush into rehoming the dogs.

If my DS became allergic to the dogs, I would have to have DS rehomed

[Booboostoo]

For what it's worth I looked into asthma and dogs because we have four dogs and a family history of asthma and found various studies that claim that 2 or more house dogs produce endorphins that help the immune system to work better and help avoid/ameliorate asthma. If you google asthma and dogs (or Google Scholar to get the actual studies) you should be able to see the links for yourself.

[hiccymapops]

When it became clear ds had asthma, I googled all over the place reading studies on asthma and pets. I did read a couple that seemed in favour of dogs in the household, saying that it would help the immune system cope. But since then as I say we've asked the hospital consultants and our gps and they advised us to be pet free. I think a big factor for dh, was he looked at the kennel club website and they said the same thing. Ironically we had a phone call an hour ago from the cavalier rescue about somebody that's interested. If I hadn't come on here today I'd probably be in tears now thinking we'd found them somewhere to go, now I'm feeling quite positive they'll still be part of our family.

Eeyore, I loved getting rid of ds first

[DooinMeCleanin]

Hiccy my sister and I may as well have lived in a zoo the amount if pets we had. I shared my room withholding several rats and a friendly pigeon at one point and she often had a bird cage or two in hers. We are both still here and our asthma has improved as we got older

[emptyshell]

The doctors do try to immediately jump on the "get rid of the pets" issue. My brother has very very severe eczema (was described by his consultant as the worst case of it he'd ever seen when we were growing up) and the first thing they said was "oooh cat - get rid." At this point the teenage me threatened to move out WITH the cat if they tried that stunt and mum pushed for allergy testing.

Turned out - cat wasn't the problem - his eczema, like mine, is very very very badly affected by stress and factors like that. We do make sure that we keep the cats out of his room and the like as a precaution - but the blanket "get rid of pets" thing without even trying really gets up my nose. He was actually allergic to things like strawberry flavouring, kiwi fruit and something else completely random when they did allergy testing on him!

His asthma and eczema (asthma so bad he ended up in an oxygen tent in hospital on a couple of occasions, eczema so bad he ended up head to toe in bandages for a lot of the time) also naturally got much much better as he got older btw.