Husband encountering dangerous dogs at work

[microplasticmum]

My husband does home visits as part of his job and often comes across XL bullies/other similarly large intimidating dogs. Some of the people he supports as part of this job own these dogs for protection and will become unreasonable if you draw attention to them. He often finds himself in situations where he is in the same room as these dogs, and feels unable to ask for them to be put away as he doesn’t want to start an argument with what is essentially a weapon in the room.

I’m worried sick for him. He recently had a really scary encounter with three large dogs in a small hotel room. He’s going to tell his manager that he’s not going to visit these people alone again, but I don’t know how much use that’ll be if he’s attacked. I have no idea what he’s supposed to do

As @Fireflybaby says there needs to be a lone worker policy. My thoughts on this are below but I’m not a lawyer or anything so I’d suggest consulting the HSE site risk assessment pages for the proper info.

The employer is legally obliged to carry out suitable and sufficient risk assessments, considering their employees and others. clearly encounters with clients dogs of any breed, but particularly those that are higher in the “attack/bite stats”, would be a known hazard. As would lone working generally, but surely also lone working + encounters with dogs within a “room or home” together as to me that increases risk than if he was, say, meeting the client in a public space.

Even with this and supporting policies and procedures, employees like your husband should have appropriate training in dealing with the hazards and risks of these (clearly often very difficult) situations, including doing their own dynamic risk assessment when arriving at a home (this is quick) and I would say walk away if the situation feels too unsafe. Again, this would be stated in the risk assessment.

If I were your husband doing this job, I would also report each visit which gave him cause for concern. presumably there is a health and safety reporting system, which you’d hope includes reporting hazards generally and near misses, as these are vital in informing the employer, and it makes sense because if they avoid these, eventually there will be an incident. But if they don’t know about it, they could say they didn’t know.

Finally there are responsibilities on employees in law also to take care of their own and others’ health and safety at work, even though the main responsibility is on the employer. So again, by following health and safety guidance from employer, reporting concerNs, looking out for self and others.

Thats my understanding anyway but he can look at the HSE pages on risk assessment to get full chapter and verse on his employer - and his - responsibilities under health and safety at work law in the uk.

I love dogs of all kinds but in the workplace I would need to follow employer protocols. It sounds from the little you say that he is doing a very difficult and important job, and he should be able to go to work knowing that all is in place to have the hazards and risks as low as is reasonably possible. I’m a bit shocked that if it’s unionised this isn’t already well controlled, although I’ve never worked in a unionised industry so can’t really comment.

His employer needs to do a risk assessment and put appropriate mitigations in place. He could ask to see the risk assessment and then take it from there with regard to how to respond.

I think a lot of these well meaning comments come from people who work in the private sector where you can decide not to deal with a client. Probabtion Officers , Health Visitors and Social Wokers do no have that luxuary. Imagine the Daily Mail headlines if a baby is harmed and support workers failed to visit because of concerns about dogs

@anniegun health and safety law applies to all workplaces, it doesn’t mean that you can get rid of all hazards and risks, but to reduce them to as low as possible. It’s about identifying and understanding the risks, and what can best be done to mitigate. It’s nothing to do with being well meaning. Even those jobs that are known to be high hazard - think diving to inspect underwater infrastructure, or construction, or firefighters, or the police, will have to aim to mitigate and reduce to as low as possible. We don’t just say oh well they are dangerous and not put anything in place. If you look up the health and safety at work Act and the workplace regulations, I don’t think you will find industry specific exceptions.

Jeez that sounds awful 😪 I'm sorry.

I do the allergy thing if I want to make an excuse to get the dog shut away, people tend to respond OK to that as it's not an adversarial way of broaching the subject. However I love dogs in general so tend to end up doing my home visit while administering ear scratches and fusses - the one dog that's actually slightly bitten me was the world's most bonkers dachshund - rarely had any bother with big dogs, and did have a period before the ban where I went in a spate of homes that were breeding dubiously XL bullies.

We do have some homes we'll not do a home visit to and have to make appointments to get those clients to come out to clinics - they're usually hygiene and hoarding related though - but my management would back any of us refusing to go out to a home cos we don't feel safe. You are in an incredibly risky position doing solo home visits and have the right not to go into a home you're not feeling comfortable with, or to go in pairs etc etc.

I've been in similar situations, now I just say I'm allergic or sometimes that the stuff I use whilst working isn't great for dogs so it's best to put them in the other room.