Should I report my health visitor? She shouted at my dog in my home?

[Anon1998]

We own a very excitable boxer dog, he gets excited by new faces and jumps up at strangers. For this reason, we keep him outside in a part of garden that’s fenced off when health professionals come, or another family member sits with him.

We've recently lost our spare front door key and my partner had took the front door key out with him. The health visitor turned up 25 minutes early. A family member was walking past and asked if they should call me as I hadn’t answered the door yet. I realised at this point I couldn’t let her in front door, and the dog was out the back.

I let her in the back gate and my dog, visibly excited, jumped up at the health visitor, leaving mud on her uniform. Far from ideal as I work in health care myself! She then shouted at my dog in a really abrupt, aggressive tone. Also, she called me someone else’s name the entire visit! If she had given me warning she was coming early I could have put my dog in a separate part of the garden which he can’t get out of. (I didn’t do this as she was about to walk off due to me not answering door
Immediately, I heard a family member pass asking if she wanted them to ring me, so I hurried to let her in back garden before she dashed off).

After she rang in for a new uniform, the visit began. She bombarded me with questions about how my dog is around my son, and 9 month old niece (already discussed he is calm and fine around children in previous visits). Her reasoning for this was because she said it took him a while to get off her whilst she shouted at him. Family members have said it’s unlikely that an excited dog is going to listen to a stranger that’s acted aggressive towards them on their “territory”.

I couldn’t have been more apologetic as I knew this would delay her schedule collecting a new uniform. However she raised her voice in my home.

I never normally have an issue with my health visitor however these past 2 visits I’ve felt abit patronised and spoken down too. She just jumps in before allowing me to finish my sentence. My son is teething and she asked if I’d given him anything, I replied “calpol”,
before I had the chance to say I’d only given him it on two occasions when I couldn’t get teething gel, she jumped in, telling me not to give him harsh stuff straight away. If she’d let me continue, I would of explained. She’s asked me if I have any info on weaning, I explained I help a lot with my niece whose weaning and have some books too. She warned me to ensure their up to date, I’m aware it’s her job to do this, but it’s the tone and way she says things. I wish she’d take some of my ideas on board before immediately shutting them down and enforcing her own agenda. (She works for NHS so I know she has to provide me guidance on these things as she told me).

I’m aware the stuff with the weaning and calpol is standard for them to check up on, I'm just giving a little background on previous visits. I just don’t like the manner she spoke to my dog in, in my home, around my son.

Apologies for the awful grammar I wrote
this in a hurry!

She sounds very opinionated I've met hv's like this at work. I'm not sure you can blame her for a knee jerk reaction to a bouncy dog tho. But it's your choice if you want to see her.

I think that would be extremely petty of you to do that - your dog jumped up on her making her uniform dirty, she shouted at your dog in response - does that really offend you that someone reacted to something unexpected that happened?

You are being utterly ridiculous, it does sound like you cant control your dog and if I were the HV I'd be worried about it round babies too.

Why didn’t you just hold your dog by the collar before opening the gate to stop him jumping up if you know he does it?

Aside from that, you need to train your dog not to jump up at strangers. What about when your child is older and wants friends round? You can’t have your dog jumping up at them. I understand her concerns regarding the dog to be honest.

I would probably shout at a dog that jumped up at me. I would expect the dog to be put away before I was let in , regardless of the reasons you give.

Rude that she called you the wrong name, did you correct her?

I work in healthcare myself, no matter what the situation, i wouldn’t act aggressive or shout in a clients house. I think it’s more the manners side of the situation. We’re not going to report her but are going to request a new health visitor potentially.

Train your dog. She was probably
scared of a massive dog leaping all over her.

You need to control your dog. I am a community nurse and it's awful having dogs jumping on you with the owner cheerfully telling you 'it's ok- he's just being friendly' with a silly laugh. Too many babies and children get hurt by untrained dogs so I think it's fair she was concerned.

I'd have been absolutely furious if someone allowed their dog to do that to me. You should have just asked her to wait at the door while you sorted it out. She had every right to be annoyed.

If you’d read the post, you would see my dog is always calm around the children so no reason to be concerned when it comes to the children.

Control your dog

But you do realise that almost everyone would say this.

It’s pretty intimidating to have a strange, large dog jump up at you. She sounds quite restrained to me. Why not train your dog so that these entirely avoidable situations don’t occur.

We own a very excitable boxer dog 🤔

i did not think health visitors had a uniform in UK? Also I would be very very unhappy at dog jumping up at me and leaving mud on my clothes

I think two issues really.
One your dog probably just shocked her and she shouted - to be fair this is a perfectly reasonable response when someone has been shocked by a big dog. Aggressive or not. Perhaps she doesn’t like dogs or is scared of them? It’s not ideal that she shouted at your dog but then it’s not ideal that she got jumped all over.
If you own a big excitable dog then it stands to reason this might happen occasionally and I don’t think you should take it personally if the person gets angry or pissed off about it, it’s part and parcel of owning a big excitable dog (or any dog, because dogs do this type of thing!).

second thing is that yes HV can be very annoying and very opinionated. They are only optional so if you don’t want to see her again then just don’t schedule any further appointments.

oh and the time they give you on the letter is an estimated time, it does say they can come either before or after that time. Unless you mean she came even earlier than the hour before that they mention on the letter?

Overall sounds like an annoying and frustrating encounter for you both but bigger things in life to worry about so perhaps take a deep breath and let this one go down to experience

I don't think you should report with regards to the dog. She could be terrified of dogs. You need to train your dog not to jump on strangers. The very nature of her job means that sometimes she is going to be earlier or later. Unless your DP was going to get the front door key cut then he really should have left it there so you could open the door easily.

With regards to the teething thing why did you answer capol when it is teething gel you give him mainly. It does sound that she is a bit ott.

I think shouting at the dog is a knee jerk reaction and I would shout at a fog jumping all over me regardless of where I was - it would be my innate reaction.

She does sound patronising though and perhaps the dog situation has clouded her judgment. A lot of people (myself included) wouldn't trust big bouncy dogs around children.

You have a dog that is not within your control. Is he only excitable around adult strangers, then, and not children? That's unusual.
You should have corrected her when she called you by the wrong name. She was probably flustered after having a massive dog jumping on her.

She's right to question you on your dog as you clearly can't control it if you couldn't get it into another room/another part of the garden/not jumping up.

She's also right to tell you what she did about calpol and weaning.

She should not have used an incorrect name. I hope you corrected her. If she continues, that is inexcusable.

The advice on weaning, cal poly etc is exactly what her job is.

She reacted with instinct when your dog jumped up. I couldn't criticise her for that. She then questioned how you handle the dog when children are around - again, she's being a responsible HV.

You obviously don't feel comfortable with her, so it's seems reasonable to request another HV. But I imagine resources are scarce so you may have to continue with this one.

You must shut a dog away before inviting any healthcare worker into your home. You have no idea how they are with dogs and they are there for work purposes so have no choice.

You could have simply asked her to wait while you secured your dog. I can understand that she would then ask questions about the dog and your children because that is her job.

The usual thing to do would be to shout over the gate ‘I am just putting the dog away’.

Put the dog away and then let her in. She doesn’t sound great, but to be honest I expect most people would be thrown off and a bit stressed by that happening.

Sorry but it must be horrible to have a job where you enter peoples homes and then have to deal with shit like jumping muddy dogs. so I strongly suspect that may have played out in her questions about the dog. Maybe she was also nervous and wanted out of there.

As for the rest - hard to say. If she’d got my name wrong I would have corrected her - I can imagine it’s an easy mistake to make.