Dog walker?

Nurses General Nursing

Published

We currently have a patient who has a companion dog r/t his seizure disorder. He has been asking the aids to take his dog for walks/toileting breaks a couple of times per shift, feed the dog, water it, etc. We are very understaffed aid-wise due to new grads leaving for RN jobs, a death, etc. One aid was off the floor forever yesterday waiting for the dog to do his busines (and I trust her so I don't think she was just taking a long break!). Has anyone else dealt with this situation? How did you handle it?

for the record...I think companion dogs are great, I just don't know that it should be our responsibility to provide care to the dog as well as the patient (who is very ambulatory, btw) I dunno. It's just a very awkward situation, as this patient is very demanding anyway and there seems to be some question as to whether this is an "approved" companion dog in the first place. Even the doctors are having trouble finding adequete documentation of his seizure disorder. aaarrrrggghhhh!

I don't think it's the responsibility of the staff to provide care. I can only recall one (blind) patient ever bringing a dog with them and he took care of everything.

I would also encourage the patient to train his dog to toilet on command so next time he's in the hospital, if the staff do need to take the dog out (at night or whatever) then it won't take quite as long.

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Specializes in Community Health, Med-Surg, Home Health.

I don't think that nursing should take responsibility for pets, also. I do believe that it is wonderful that the patient has an animal trained to keep him safe, but, next thing you know, we'll have to groom him, walk around with pooper scoopers, etc...get fined if we don't clean the poop after walking the animal outside...the list can go on and on.

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Being a dog owner myself as well as a long time dog advocate, I would suggest someone look into a support service like PAWS (Pets Are Wonderful Support). If PAWS does not exist in your area, someone who loves animals should look into starting a chapter. This org is committed to caring for the dogs of the ill and disabled and does wonderful work. I just went to a fundraiser for PAWS here in SanFrancisco that raised thousands, and was fun! (The event was "Petchitecture"). Alternatively, check with your local Humane Society for help.

As a side rant, it irks me that people are always advised to get a therapy dog to improve the quality of their life, without pre-planning what happens to the animal when the person becomes too sick to care for it - many of these animals are abandoned like an old pair of crutches after providing emotional sustenance for their owners.

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hmmm let me be a pain in the butt......a single person, demanding, no hx of sz locatable in the chart, ill with something, needs admitance to hosp.; has a pet....presto, the pet becomes a service animal......good luck

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Specializes in Family Nurse Practitioner.

I probably shouldn't have even opened this thread, lol. I'm sure my reply is largely based on the fact that I love animals and feel their lives are every bit as valuable as humans. With domestic animals since we as the human race have essentially "caged" them, imo, it is our collective responsibility to attend to their needs.

Family help, hospital volunteers or a sitter would be perferrable but...all that aside considering since I believe his dog is a family member walking him, picking up his poop and getting to pet him would without a doubt be far more pleasurable than a majority of the time I am required to spend with most of my patient's two legged family members. If you would take on my pts BiPolar Mom that has neglected him for his entire life and in all her manic glory is now insisting that you fix the damage she has done not counting the obvious bio issues that are there in 10 days, sheesh sign Jules up for dog duty!!

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I agree with other posts... should not be the responsibility of nursing staff to take care of the dog.

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Specializes in SRNA.

I'm assuming you're in a hospital since your specialty listed is neurotrauma ICU - are there not hospital volunteers that can walk/toilet the dog? I agree that it shouldn't lie upon nursing staff, especially when staffing is light at the moment, but there should be other alternatives. I know there usually aren't many volunteer type activities in the ICU setting, but if your hospital has volunteers at all, give their coordinator a ring and let them know there are dog walking opportunities throughout the day. Where I work, I would think the volunteers would love to take the time to do this!

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Specializes in NICU.

I agree, volunteers would be a big help, but not on night shift. Get a Social worker involved, if the patient or a family member can't walk the dog, somebody has to do it! The poor dog has to go potty outside if it can't go stay with someone else at this time.

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Specializes in neurotrauma ICU.
I'm assuming you're in a hospital since your specialty listed is neurotrauma ICU - are there not hospital volunteers that can walk/toilet the dog? I agree that it shouldn't lie upon nursing staff, especially when staffing is light at the moment, but there should be other alternatives. I know there usually aren't many volunteer type activities in the ICU setting, but if your hospital has volunteers at all, give their coordinator a ring and let them know there are dog walking opportunities throughout the day. Where I work, I would think the volunteers would love to take the time to do this!

to clarify...last night was my last as a CNA on a medsurg floor. I start as a graduate nurse on NTICU next week. Perhaps I was premature in changing my specialty on here, I was just so excited to graduate and get the job!

I agree that volunteers and social services should get involved. I will call my friends on the floor and suggest that. Apparently he has a girlfriend in the home that cares for the dog (sometimes) during the day but he insists on keeping it in his room at night instead of sending it home with her. As for documentation, there is nothing official in the charts. I don't know anything about service dogs, but I would imagine that legitimate ones have some kind of documentation (?)

Maybe I'm just grumpy because we are soooo short staffed and this extra request by a grumpy patient who seems a bit shady was jus too much. :o

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Specializes in neurotrauma ICU.
I probably shouldn't have even opened this thread, lol. I'm sure my reply is largely based on the fact that I love animals and feel their lives are every bit as valuable as humans. With domestic animals since we as the human race have essentially "caged" them, imo, it is our collective responsibility to attend to their needs.

Family help, hospital volunteers or a sitter would be perferrable but...all that aside considering since I believe his dog is a family member walking him, picking up his poop and getting to pet him would without a doubt be far more pleasurable than a majority of the time I am required to spend with most of my patient's two legged family members. If you would take on my pts BiPolar Mom that has neglected him for his entire life and in all her manic glory is now insisting that you fix the damage she has done not counting the obvious bio issues that are there in 10 days, sheesh sign Jules up for dog duty!!

lol I totally see your point. But...it also seems a little bit like being asked to change bipolar mom's diaper when she soils herself. And this dog barked at me every time I entered the room. I am a little anxious around dogs I don't know to begin with, so this was did not endear the doggy to me. In my (very limited) experince with service dogs, I thought you are really not supposed to pet them or otherwise distract them from their job (someone will correct me if I'm wrong I'm sure ;)), so it wasn't like getting to pet it would have been a fun distraction anyway.

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Specializes in ER.

No paperwork, no dog, unless they have made special arrangements ahead of time. Service animals don't become that way without paperwork, or at least some kind of advantage to the patient that nursing would surely have seen by now.

Maybe you can kick out the patient, and keep the dog?

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Service dogs are trained to provide assistance to a disabled person but the training can be done by anyone--the patient, family, a dog trainer or a service. If I'm disabled and teach my dog to pick up items for me because I can't do it, my dog can legally be considered a service animal without any paperwork or certification necessary. The two big keys are that 1) the patient has some type of disability (obvious or documented) and 2) the dog (or any animal) has been trained in some way to assist them with that disability. If he doesn't have a seizure disorder then the hospital doesn't have to allow the dog to be there. Though I'm sure they'd rather be safe than sorry and the dog is there to stay!

I'm all for service dogs, but I really do think having some sort of standard regarding training and a national registry that offers some type of identification (a collar or harness for the dog and a card or something for the owner) would be beneficial. As difficult as it may be to believe, there are people who take advantage of the laws regarding service animals. I hear about it more as therapy animals (which are great!) have become more common and people seem to think they carry the same privileges as a service animal and they don't.

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