Adoption

Hyper Dog and home study...your thoughts?

We are still in the inital process of adoption, but I have been thinking ahead to a home study. 

Anyone have a home study done AND have pets that are not the most well behaved? =)  We had a small one year old dog (under 10 pounds) that is such a great pet....except when you walk in the house! He loves to jump up on people.  I'm not just talking about putting his paws on your shins...I'm talking about jumping so that all 4 legs leave the ground!  He calms down after a few minutes, but really only if you pet him and acknowledge him.  We are working on breaking the habit, but it got me thinking about a home study with a stranger in our house....and potentially with a person who is not dog friendly.   

How did / do you plan to handle your pets in regards to the home study?  I assume they have to be in the house so they can also be observed in the family setting? 

 I worry that they will judge us because our dog has that bad habit. 

Our beautiful daughter arrived after 4 long years TTC! Christmas Eve 2011 we got our miracle surprise BFP! unmedicated cycle Beta #1 = 674 Beta #2 = 1905 Baby Birthday Ticker Ticker BabyFruit Ticker

Re: Hyper Dog and home study...your thoughts?

  • Our dog isn't super hyper but was a young pup at the time of our HS who did get very excited when we had company. Our SW was not bothered in the slightest. I would not worry about it too much.
  • Ours are outside pets so they wer all outside and SW took pictures of them and wanted shot records.
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  • We have a 14 lb. Miniature Pinscher that is as sweet as can be to people she knows, but absolutely hates strangers.  When a stranger comes over, she acts like a little terror, barking and growling.  When we have guests over, sometimes we just have to close her in a bathroom upstairs, because she won't settle down even after 15 minutes or so.  I imagine that we'll have to close her into a different part of the house and just explain to the social worker that she really is a sweet dog, but doesn't do well with strangers.

    Strangly, we have a lobster costume that when we put on our dog, she acts much more calm toward strangers.  We found this out when I had a bunch of friends over the night before halloween, and I dressed up both of our dogs.  The lobster costume is kind of big and bulky, so I think the distraction from the weight of the costume on her body made her to preoccupied to bark at the strangers.  My husband put the costume on her at Christmas to get her to behave when we had a bunch of people over.  The social worker might think we're nuts, though, if we have a little dog dressed up as a lobster during our home visit.  Maybe we should be sure to schedule it around halloween :)

  • We have a cat. He came and checked the SW out, then took off. His size is intimidating, but he's a wimp.

    I don't have experience with a hyper dog.

    I would think you would just have to let the SW know the situation, and have her be prepared. I don't see it as a huge stumbling block. If your dog has any (esp good) experiences around children, I would bring that up too.

  • My dog isn't crazy hyper but definitely gets excited when we have company. She doesn't jump up but is "in your face" for about 5 minutes. Our SW loved our dog. I would just hold the dog until it calms down. I don't think your SW will judge you. Some dogs are crazy and most people understand that. Do you crate him at all? You could always put him in his crate for a little while too.
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  • Thanks everyone. Our dog does great with all our nieces and nephews...so I'll bring that up and have pictures of them all together around the house! haha  I'll also be sure to take the dog out for a long run that morning to help drain off some of the puppy energy.  Stick out tongue I was hoping that some other people might have been in the same boat.  I just don't want a correlation made that if we can't teach our dog manners, how can we teach a child! 
    Our beautiful daughter arrived after 4 long years TTC! Christmas Eve 2011 we got our miracle surprise BFP! unmedicated cycle Beta #1 = 674 Beta #2 = 1905 Baby Birthday Ticker Ticker BabyFruit Ticker
  • We have 2 beagles that don't have the best manners especially when there are new people in the house.  We warned our home study worker that they would want to sniff everything they brought in as well as them.  We also warned her that they do like to jump on you.  We made sure when she got there that they were in another room for a little while and introduced them one at a time giving them plenty of time to sniff and search.  After about 5 min they curled up on the couch and were just fine.
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  • imagejoeandkristie:
    We have 2 beagles that don't have the best manners especially when there are new people in the house.  We warned our home study worker that they would want to sniff everything they brought in as well as them.  We also warned her that they do like to jump on you.  We made sure when she got there that they were in another room for a little while and introduced them one at a time giving them plenty of time to sniff and search.  After about 5 min they curled up on the couch and were just fine.

    LOL.  Sounds like our beagle.  She wouldn't leave the SW's alone.  She had her head full into their bag trying to see if they brought anything, sniffed all over their water bottle, demanded attention and petting by jumping right in their lap.  We were really embarrassed (and our dog has been through obedience training), but the SW's didn't mind a bit and loved all over our dog.

  • I've been terrified of this since day 1. We have 3 dogs and 2 cats. 2 dogs are very shy and one is actually a therapy dog. Our other one with the neurological condition can be kind of in a weird mood sometimes. He gets freaked our very easily since he's going blind - already blind in one eye. I know that if we put him on the ground when she is here, he will just bark and bark at her and literally be freaked out. I spoke with her last week about that and how he is fine in our arms. I just asked if she would mind if we held him the entire time. She understands his needs and was fine with that.

    Could you crate your dog? Or, I thought about asking if she said no - but have her meet the dog and then have someone in your family come take the dog and dogsit for the evening.

  • imagehappiness2004:

    We are still in the inital process of adoption, but I have been thinking ahead to a home study. 

    Anyone have a home study done AND have pets that are not the most well behaved? =)  We had a small one year old dog (under 10 pounds) that is such a great pet....except when you walk in the house! He loves to jump up on people.  I'm not just talking about putting his paws on your shins...I'm talking about jumping so that all 4 legs leave the ground!  He calms down after a few minutes, but really only if you pet him and acknowledge him.  We are working on breaking the habit, but it got me thinking about a home study with a stranger in our house....and potentially with a person who is not dog friendly.   

    How did / do you plan to handle your pets in regards to the home study?  I assume they have to be in the house so they can also be observed in the family setting? 

     I worry that they will judge us because our dog has that bad habit. 

     

    I could have written this myself. My dog is 20 lbs, small, very sweet dog...unless someone rings the doorbell and someone comes inside.  She doesn't know how to handle strangers. She barks (loud) and runs around, and jumps on them. We've tried every means possible in the past few years but nothing has worked to change this behavior.  It's really strange though, because we only see this behavior when someone comes over.  Sometimes she'll calm down, but not always.  We think it's just a OH MY GOSH OH MY GOSH A NEW FRIEND A NEW FRIEND A NEW FRIEND OH MY GOSH A NEW FRIEND A NEW FRIEND thinking. LOL. We've found that if we give her a bone (she only gets them when people come over) then she'll leave people alone after about 2-3 minutes...but once that bone is finished good lordy she's back - in full strength. 

    Our caseworker was just concerned how she would interact with kids.  ANd she's fine when it comes to having kids around. Kids pull her tail, her ears and run around with her, and she never snips at them or anything else the caseworker might be concerned about.  Other than that, our caseworker thought it was hilarious...(mortifying for us...) but yeah, you can't hide her in another room, they want to see how you interact with your pets and how the pets interact with others...sorry :(

     

  • We just had our home study yesterday.  We have two German Shepherds that bark a lot when people first come over. After a few minutes of showing off their toys they calm down quite a bit.  I was nervous about the barking, but our social worker is so cool and laid back and seemed to be genuinely happy about meeting the dogs.  I guess it really depends on what your SW is like.  Good luck!

  • Our dog also gets super excited when someone is at the door, jumping up on them and barking like crazy.  Take him for a looooong walk to really exhaust him and then distract him really quickly with a kong or a favourite treat or something so that they lose interest in the SW.

    Ours did just great once he realized we were just sitting in the living room having a conversation, he settled down in his bed and went to sleep. 

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  • our dogs love people and spent our home visit trying to sit on our sw's lap. It was embarrassing, but it was fine. I am not sure she even mentioned much about our dogs in the homestudy.
  • Sounds like my dog exactly no worries our caseworker was very good with her said hello and petted her to calm her then we were good. She has met with the dog several times and it has never bothered her and did nto effect our visit

    Proud Momma of our daughter Charlie! She found her forever home August 2010 Hope to be the proud momma of #2 in July
  • Wow, now I am REALLY glad I posted this.  So many of you have similar dogs!   I will continue to work on breaking this bad behavior, but it is nice to know that the SW won't pull out a big red pen and start taking notes as soon as she sees our dog! haha
    Our beautiful daughter arrived after 4 long years TTC! Christmas Eve 2011 we got our miracle surprise BFP! unmedicated cycle Beta #1 = 674 Beta #2 = 1905 Baby Birthday Ticker Ticker BabyFruit Ticker
  • We have 3 dogs who are well behaved except when people come over (no matter who it is) and are super excited.  We recently put up a baby gate between our kitchen and living room (I have no idea why it took me 5 years to do this but it has made a huge difference in general) and when we know people are coming over right before they get there we put them in the kitchen and try giving them a special treat (the special treat they only get in the kitchen during these situations) that way they can focus on the treat and hopefully calm down a little bit before greeting our visitors.

    Also, if you are able to do this, maybe the day of the home study have a dog walker come to the house 2-3 hours before to take her for a long  walk, that way you can stay there getting things ready and hopefully a good 1 hour walk or something will ware her out a little bit.

  • We warned our social worker about our dog (she occasionally jumps) -- she loves to be all up in your face and be petted, and once you acknowledge her we're able to tell her down/off and she'll lay down on her bed.

    What we did was keep her crated until our social worker was in the house and sitting on the sofa and we had chatted for a few minutes.  Then DH let Maggie out of her crate and she came into the living room, wanted attention from DH and then the social worker and then back to DH.

    All was fine.  :)

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