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January 2, 2022 01:48

Hi everyone. My spouse and I have a small very friendly gentle dog who we feel would be a fantastic friend for a young child. We are still only gathering information about adoption at this stage but our only concern is that a lot of experts in info sessions mention rehoming pets. Our dog's behaviour isn't a concern at all but we worry that the child may be allergic (2 of our friends are) which could land us in a horrendous position of having to rehome our dog.

My questions are: how much allergy/medical information do you get about the child (we're hoping to adopt a young child, not a baby)? Would the child's reaction need to be extreme or would even very mild allergies cause the SW enough concern to suggest removing the dog from the home? Have any of you heard or experienced this situation where allergies cause issues?

We would of course put the child first, but need to know worst case scenario and whether there's anything we can do to avoid it cropping up once we're deep into the process.

Thank you in advance.

Edited 02/01/2022

Safia January 2, 2022 11:16

I think it’s something you’d need to explore during assessment. At the end of the day SWs would want to see that you’d be prepared to always put the child first and have arrangements to rehome the dog if necessary- eg a friend or family member who’d agreed to take it. It’s not just about allergies - which may well be difficult to predict - but the child could react very negatively to the dog - eg constantly irritating it for whatever reason and the dog might very well react out of character turning on the child (as any animal might) or it might be a question of protecting the dog from the child. So having safe spaces the dog can retreat to for example would be important. There’s no way of knowing a lot of these things before hand so it’s general principles you’d need to explore in the assessment and finding possible solutions to different possible senarios

January 2, 2022 15:52

Thank you, Safia. That makes perfect sense.

Donatella January 2, 2022 16:42

As Safia says, it’s not necessarily as straightforward as allergies. We’ve always had dogs and my children have always got along with them and vice versa. However that’s not always the case - much will depend on the child’s history, personality, abilities/disabilities etc. Much will also depend on social workers opinions and feelings about dogs - some like them, others won’t.

Have a plan for how you’ll manage the relationship

January 2, 2022 17:10

Thanks, Donatella, that's really useful.

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