Teacher’s dogs in classroom?

[Sunnyday14558]

Our son starts school in September. We had a meeting this evening with the new class teacher and fellow parents and the teacher dropped on that she has two sausage dogs. She said she brings one into class and is going to bring the second into class next week and ‘hopes he gets on with the kids’. All the fellow parents made a lot of ‘awww’ sounds but honestly I was a bit surprised.
is this normal in schools? She also said that if any parents were uncomfortable she’d try and work something out. I’m nervous around dogs but mostly because I have a four year old boy who doesn’t have experience being around them. I feel in an awkward situation where I don’t want to be ‘that’ parent if I say I’m not happy but equally, maybe it’s ok? So confused

I think it’s also poorly behaved dogs where they have had threats from council etc, and think taking it to work will fix the problem.

I had a friend who did this, dog was an utter shit, all neighbours complained, council interaction. She purchased an ‘assistance dog’ vest from Amazon and just took it everywhere with her and kicked up a stink if anyone questioned her. It was to solve the problem of leaving it at home. I hated meeting up with her as it was so poorly behaved, so, this combined with a few other similar CF’ery things, I let the friendship fizzle out. I guarantee if she had of been a teacher, it would be a ‘therapy dog’ in the classroom.

Well OFSTED obviously don’t have a problem with it as it’s a highly rated school. It doesn’t bother me but I can imagine it might not go down so well in an urban school where children might not be so used to being around animals and of course some ethnic groups and religions don’t like dogs.

Let's ignore children with asthma and allergies to dogs shall we

No, that's a nonsense that urban children aren't so used to being around animals. Dogs are everywhere in London, where I live, and any town or city I go to.
The situation at your school is clearly OK or at least tolerated, for whatever reason, but that doesn't mean any school would be OK with dogs. And anyway it sounds like the dog in this scenario isn't restricted to one classroom (you say, 'Yes, he does enter classrooms, all the time' plural). And is he trained/used to kids? If so, it's different from the teacher in the OP's case, who ‘hopes' her dog will get on with the kids.
All that being said, I do still wonder what would happen, in real terms and also in terms of insurance etc, if the head's dog in your school hurt a child (or indeed a child hurt the dog). A lot of situations are absolutely fine until they're not.

Thankfully the vote is over OP resulting in 70% of posters saying YANBU. Common sense prevails. Keep dogs out of the school classroom.

Oh ok, I don't live in a city and assumed city kids would have less exposure to dogs and animals in general, apologies.

I've no idea if he has had any child-specific training - he's a nice and gentle golden retriever and the head does shoot with him. so he is very obedient. No idea about the insurance and risk assessment and everything that people have mentioned here - doubt it has crossed anyone's mind. It's a church school (as all the infants and juniors are here) but very relaxed about lots of stuff - no fencing and locked gates and all the other things I read about on mumsnet.

Dogs are very much an urban accessory now IME. Unfortunately people often seem to put about as much effort into training/managing/socialising them as they would if they were a handbag.
A gentle, trained and obedient golden retriever is a different proposition from two possibly untrained dachshunds, that's for sure.
I would still, as a head, be wary of possible harm scenarios though, even if only hypothetically.

I would have refused to go as well.

Nobody needs to have a dog in school unless it's a guide dog or a very narrow class of trained assistance dogs.

Otherwise if you want to play with a dog and don't have one at home or at friends/relatives you can borrow, get your parents to take you to a animal rescue place. Or a pet shop as they (surprisingly to me) still sell pets in some cases.

And you can't compare the risk of cars with the risk of dogs. People need to get around and walking isn't always an option. Few people "need" a dog. But in any case we have rules and licences for cars and in theory at least people are meant to drive responsibly. Maybe we could introduce licences for pets too.

It is with genuine respect for you as a head Teacher I have to add there is nothing hypothetical about a child with an often terrible reaction to dog dander. It can induce breathing difficulties in a child with asthma, hives & streaming, itchy, swollen bloodshot eyes which antihistames often can't touch. I have family members including myself with this allergy & yes also to the so called hypoallergenic variety, no such thing, hence my interest & vehement belief dogs should not be accepted in school classrooms. If there was a movement towards this being acceptable I & many others I have spoken to would stand up & fight for the right to have dog free classrooms.

I'm not a head teacher; it's my grammar letting me down
I meant 'If I were a head I would still be wary of possible harm scenarios…'
And I said, 'hypothetically' because I was talking specifically to the poster who says their school has a dog and it's not a problem – I assumed from that that there aren't any kids with allergies. I meant I'd be thinking about insurance for hypothetical scenarios like the dog biting or otherwise hurting someone (or indeed someone hurting the dog).

My boss always brings his dogs with him, and a colleague brings his from to time. To a factory... I love it though, always volunteer to walk colleague's dog.

Something definitely needs to be done about all these dogs.

Trust you...

Good grief 😡😡😡

I remember running past someone's aggressive little dog in a public place once. I was running because I needed to get somewhere quickly. It rushed over and started leaping and snapping at my legs, unleashing a volley of angry yaps. I shouted "Can you control your wretched dog please" and she said accusingly that it was my fault because I was running and the precious little thing didn't like people running. I'm glad to say I let rip at her.

Classrooms are the last place on earth a pair of dachshunds should be.