School staff member off work for months after developing allergy to ‘in-house’ dog, meeting told

When Scottish Border Council’s Education Sub-Committee met on Tuesday, April 23, members endorsed a new ‘school dogs’ policy.

There is a growing body of thought that specially selected and highly trained dogs can be of great benefit to children, especially in academic environments.

Within Scottish Borders Council schools, there are currently three ‘school dogs’ already in place, which bring great joy, along with emotional and academic support to children in those school settings.

Hawick & Denholm councillor Clair Ramage said she could see the potential benefits of introducing more school dogs, but urged caution after her constituents raised concerns.

She said: “I don’t want to be negative because it could be potentially quite beneficial. But as a councillor I have had a lot of emails about this and a lot of concern.

“I received very worrying emails from residents in my ward over the introduction of a dog in a school and the detrimental effect it had had on their lives.

“One lady said that on the first day of term the untrained puppy, 20 weeks old, was running around in the staff meeting. She thought it would only be in some areas of school but it was in all classes and was not house trained. You can imagine what that would be like.

“She immediately began to use her inhalers many times a day and upped her anti-histamines and changed her clothes and showered as soon as she got in from work.

“When she contacted her headteacher to explain she was told it was a low allergy dog. Her condition deteriorated and she had to attend the BGH. She only returned to work recently because the dog is now just in the headteacher’s office and the playground. The plan is to move the dog upstairs at the school and this resident feels her job is not sustainable because of the situation.

“Maybe we have jumped the gun by allowing a dog in the school without protections in place. We need to think about duty of care to all staff and pupils, we have children too with severe allergies.”

Members were told that full risk assessments took place before dogs are allocated to schools.

It is also imperative for a school dog to have adequate public liability/third party insurance for when it is on the school estate, which covers the use of the dog for training and providing services/assistance with pupils and any interaction on site with any staff or visitors on the school estate.

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