Assistance dogs in schools and allergies

[rosewool]

We were chatting about assistance dogs, such as diabetes alert dogs, in work today and it's made me wonder what would happen if a child that required an assistance dog and a child that was allergic to dogs had to be in the same class?

Would the assistance dog not be allowed or would one child need to move school?

As a mother to a child with allergies to animals I wouldn’t stop the animal, but I would ask that my child washed hands properly and regularly (he’s 6) and was kept away from the dog reasonably (although my child loves dogs and would probably hug it)

It depends on the type of allergy to an extent - most people with animal allergies can control them with otc allergy pills and hand washing. If a child could get anaphylaxis then one child would need to move class/school

My son is 8 and allergic to dogs and cats (and a fuck load of other stuff).

I would just ask DS not to be sat near the dog. I think it would probably be fine.

In the schools I’ve worked in, all of the assistance dogs have been poodle or Maltese types or crosses (Maltipoo, Bipoochon etc), chosen particularly because of the likelihood of them posing a low allergy risk to allergic children.

I once spent 40 minutes on a bus with a guide dog on board, I was at the opposite end of the bus to the dog and I still nearly had an asthma attack from the severity of my reaction to it

There's no way I would ever have been able to share a classroom with a dog for an entire day. I wonder how that would have been managed when I was at school if another pupil needed an assistance dog

You nearly had an asthma attack?

Do you didn't have an asthma attack?
So nothing happened?

Genuine question, that isn't supposed to sound arsey. I just wondered what you meant exactly.

I don’t know about this but in my child’s class two children with cystic fibrosis enrolled. It’s dangerous for cystic fibrosis portents to be near one another so one had to move schools and neither wanted to. It was all very sad.

Not quite the same in that in our case it was a pets as therapy dog in school, so not in class all the time. However it was still a right royal pain to manage. I can't say I miss it now the teacher with the dog has moved on. I'm not sure of the breed, but it certainly did shed. For us it was not just the allergy, but as he's had some nasty reactions in the past, the fear of having another is a huge issue for him.

Things which helped were things like bringing in a large fleece blanket for the dog and any children interacting with it to sit on. Once the dog left it was much quicker to pick up the blanket that find someone to Hoover the book corner. Things like trying to make sure the usual beanbags and cushions from the book corner stayed out of the way helped too, but didn't tend to happen.

The teacher kept one of those sticky rollers I her desk, and used it if she'd got covered in dog hair. They were not however prepared to de hair the rest of the class. I can see why, but it basically meant ds was afraid to play with anyone on the days the dog was in. In the end it was agreed that his class have their visit at the end of the day, so he didn't spend too long fretting. Ds had a change on clothes in school, should he need it.

Biggest problem was the school have a policy of not giving any medication which is not prescribed. Our GP in common with most in the area have a policy of not prescribing medications which are cheaply available over the counter, in this case antihistamines. It took months of back and forth, and I the end £45 for a gp letter before they would keep his medication in school. Even then, I don't believe they ever gave it too him. With the visit at the end of the day they never saw the full extent of his reaction.

If I could have chosen a school without a therapy dog I would, however he needs a specialist school which already limited us to two in the county, and it's increasingly popular here for schools to have a school dog.