Dangerous dogs

[Ghanagirl]

AIBU to ask how you can help protect your self from being bitten by aggressive dogs.
I have to visit clients at home and frequently come in to contact with various pets, some docile others really aggressive and owner's of latter often seem unconcerned that their snarling dog can be intimidating to a person that has to visit their home by law (I work for NHS) I've never been bitten but know colleagues who have so I'm now nervous around dogs in particular...

Well, I don't in all honesty but we can agree to disagree :) I've had perfectly well behaved, quiet and calm dogs in the past and I wouldn't be shutting them away.

I've also had nutcase dogs who HAVE been put away :)

Porpoise there are different forms of aggression. Mine is fear based so only displays any form of aggression when frightened.

At home he is a sweety until we get strangers in hence why I still have him. If he was aggressive to family he would be gone.

He wouldn't go up and attack someone but if someone comes up to him he barks and tries to scare them away as he is frightened of them.

In all honesty he is probably safer than most dogs as I am under no illusion that he is to be trusted therefore he is never in contact with anyone so couldn't bite if he wanted too. I never have him around people at all so it's impossible for him to injure someone unlike someone who can't read or understand dog behaviour at all.

armpitz

All dogs can be aggressive! You cannot trust a dog, you cannot explain to a dog that an inject of morphine may sting the owner but will relieve their other pain, or that a dressing change may be uncomfortable but be of benefit to the patient. They see a member of their family being hurt and want it stop.

My attack lasted 15 minutes, I remember every second of it. I was only released by the dogs when a member of the family used deadly force on one of them and hit the other so hard it was momentarily stunned. I was dragged out of the house and to the car by the nurse I was with and the second dog continued to try and attack me as I lay in the back loosing a significant amount of blood. It was the most friendly dog but it was determined to kill me.
I am extremely lucky to be alive. If the family member wouldn't have acted as he did I'd be dead, if I wasn't with a medical professional who was able to stem as much as the blood flow as possible and stop me going into shock I'd be dead.

I spent an awfully long time in hospital and have had multiple operations since in order to regain full function in my arms and hands.

I refused to be scared of dogs. I own a very large but known to be gentle breed now. He is away whenever we have new visitors and if we had any professionals come to the house. People often tell me that he's fine out as they are okay with dogs but even then I am extremely wary.

I'm sorry you went through that

I would still have the same gut reaction to someone telling me to put my dog away as someone telling me to put my child away - it's their home.

Being asked nicely yes.

Being told I have to because 'she could become aggressive' would elicit a face from me and a polite suggestion that they moved on.

A dog is very different to a child!

But your dog could become aggressive.

Technically myth but it's as likely to happen as a bus coming through the house or something.

Not to me porpoise

Which is obviously fine as long as you're not the one getting hit by it armpitz

Look at it this way, you're protecting your dog from being in a position where it feels the need to react negatively. You're removing that risk. If your dog bites someone you will face a police investigation, your dog will be PTS if it isn't killed during the attack.

You won't do it to protect the person coming into your home but wouldn't you do it to protect your dog.

I've got four dogs, all fantastic with people, and it would never occur to me to not to put them away if someone was coming to do any kind of work. Nor would it occur to me to be affronted if a professional coming to the house required them to be put away.

This is just as much their home as mine but it's just safer and easier all around to either just pop them away or make sure they're out on a walk for the duration of any work.

“but you seem to believe 'all dogs can be aggressive”

Armpitz I get the impression that you are deliberately missing the point here. All dogs have the potential to be aggressive. They are animals not humans and can potentially be unpredictable.

“I've had perfectly well behaved, quiet and calm dogs in the past and I wouldn't be shutting them away.”

But you know they are well behaved, a visitor might not. Staffies have a gentle nature, but they have powerful jaws that lock. I think anyone who swears blue that their dog, regardless of what breed it is, would never harm anyone should read EverdeRose’s posts. Unprecedented dog attacks can and do happen.

MIL has 'nice' dogs, one of her GSDs bit her neighbours kid in the face.
"But he's never done that before...!"
MIL doesn't understand why I don't take the kids over there. She wouldn't dream of putting them in a room even if we asked so easier/safer to just not go.

I'm not Iam - I'm really not like that :)

But in all my time working in people's homes I never asked them to put their dog away (I would have had it been aggressive) and I would have been surprised if someone had done so to me (obviously a polite 'oh I am a bit nervous, would you mind if we popped her in the kitchen' is different to 'PUT THAT BEAST AWAY!')

My dog was a basset hound and the laziest creature ever so putting her away would have been difficult if only from the POV of moving her!

I am also a HCP. Any dog can get aggressive if they think you are 'attacking' their family. They do not understand the difference between a cry out in pain and a cry out in fear ( or both in a child or confused patient ) I have dogs I am not scared of them. I would never examine someone with an unsecured dog or expose anyone, coming into my home to do their job, to anything that could be a risk or cause fear.

I'm an aesthetic nurse and very rarely work mobile, I'd never demand someone to 'put that beast away' but I don't see how I've got to justify myself as being nervous or scared of dogs in order to work.
If I'm coming to your house to provide a service and don't want to meet the furry family I shouldn't have to. I'm not an overnight guest or a friend, I'll be gone within half an hour.

I have four very friendly dogs. I would never open the front door to a stranger unless all the dogs were closed in another room, and I would always tell the person that there are dogs in the house but that they are closed in.
I would not be remotely offended if anyone checked the dogs were secure before they came in, and I don't think any decent dog owner would find this strange.
As a visitor you are entirely justified to ask for the dogs to be shut in another room, and to wait until this happens before you go in the house.

I even offer to shut my cats away when HCPs are visiting because not everyone will want to be distance!supervised by black!cat/have blond!cat inspecting their possessions. Normally my black!cat hides under my bed when there are strangers in the house. HCPs he will creep down to watch from the stairs to ensure they're not hurting me; and the time he heard me inhale sharply as a Nutricia nurse did Something Unpleasant involving my NJ tube he actually came tearing into the room shrieking like a furry little banshee, puffed up & ready to defend me despite his own utter terror of strangers. He then bounced round the room as if to warn them they'd better not try anything, before scrambling up to sit on top of the door & watch everything else they did, letting out a warning "moooooowl" any time he disapproved.

Am very willing to concede most people's cats aren't quite as ridiculous as mine, but [most] dogs, however lovely & gentle & well-trained they are, are incredibly bonded to their humans & thus liable to instinctively protect them from what they interpret as harm. Thankfully my black!cat didn't clawitty-bite first & ask questions later, but went for "get away! Away from my human AT ONCE! I AM A FEROCIOUS HOUSE PANTHER! FEAR ME!" (Or something like that, one assumes...).

I don't think it's unreasonable to ask that dogs other than assistance dogs be removed from the room[s] you'll be working in. Am pretty sure several NHS trusts allow staff to say they won't treat patients unless dogs are secured away from area they'll be in. Have you checked your Trust's policy recently? Can you raise it with them if it doesn't say that, maybe using the document a PP linked to to help?

I think the point is dogs can hurt and kill to a far greater extent than children and even then if I was visiting someone for health purposes I wouldn't want children around unless they were the patient.

I own a dog and I ALWAYS check people are OK with Dogs and if not in the crate she goes or outside asap. It is not fair to the visitor. At the end of the day a dog IS an animal and they do not take priority over people and should not be allowed to behaviour wise.

I actually think it is down right rude not to check people are OK and put them away if not and there is a professional need to be int he house

Can your service send out a letter confirming the home visit and asking for any pets to be outside or in another room during the visit. Usually they receive details about getting a copy of their prescriptions etc so could be added to this? That's what ours does.

I like dogs and I keep dogs.

Dogs (except service animals) are put in another room or I don't come in. I dont know your dog. It doesn't know me. I may look like I am hurting you especially as during an examination you may be in pain as a result of what I do. Ie I am hurting you.

That dog stays out until I am gone.

Similarly my dog was put in the utility when the boiler man came today. No fuss.

armpits I'm clearly nbu as my HR and unison agrees with me!

My sister's like that about her dog - she actually ranks it above her children I suspect. It has to be go everywhere with her (except that somehow she's perfectly happy to dump it on my parents when she goes on holiday) and can't be shut away. It's bitten multiple people including children but it's never the dogs fault (well technically I agree, it's the owner's fault for letting a snappy half trained dog do whatever it wants and go wherever it wants). According to her it's always the fault of the person bitten, even the owner of working dogs who was bitten walking past a table he hadn't noticed the dog was under,hard enough to draw blood through jeans (too matcho to make a fuss unfortunately) and even the children in her care it's bitten - and my child whom it bit in somebody else's house when i didn't know i had to be on high alert because I didn't know she was coming over with the sodding thing never on a lead and always free to run ahead and bite whoever, because it's "only playing" or "only mouthing" and "people should teach their children how to behave around dogs and not to make sudden movements or move their hand while the dog is mouthing it" - even when the bitten child is a toddler and there was no way to know that the dog was there

Nobody's allowed to say anything because the dog is "part of her family" and asking her not to bring it with her would be "like asking her to leave her children home alone"

If her children bit people hard enough to draw blood through jeans and leave ragged wounds on their hands people would expect her to seek help though - if it's a sodding dog it's apparently "just playing" no matter what harm it does

I grew up with dogs and used to like them but people who insist on treating them like children have put me right off - people who over indulge their dogs and fail to properly train them are the same ones who won't admit they are animals and animals are unpredictable and every dog can bite under certain circumstances. It is the owner's responsibility to prevent those circumstances occuring - the owners who are all about their dog's rights being identical to those of children are the the ones who give responsible owners a bad name, and the ones whose dogs bite people.