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ANIMALS & ELDERS: TOGETHER FOREVER/RESOURCES
By Pea Horsley
www.animalthoughts.com
GUIDANCE ON GOING PET-FRIENDLY
It’s important to get it right!
While some care homes do recognise the benefits of pets and accept residents’ animals, rules
are often drawn up randomly – making them seem either unfair or illogical – and applied
inconsistently. This can lead to problems.
Examples of poor practice include:

A total ban on pets including visiting dogs still owned by residents

A ban on visits from accredited therapy dogs

Overly restrictive or illogical rules

A ban on cats and dogs – often the most common companion animals

One pet per resident, provoking a heart-breaking choice
A pet policy will only work well if:

It’s unambiguous with clear guidelines and a written agreement that cannot be
changed at the whim of a new manager.

It offers residents access to good advice and support services (outlined in guidance to
housing providers).

It’s reviewed regularly, with residents, to ensure their needs continue to be met, and
promoted to staff, residents and potential residents.

It’s not overly restrictive (ie some schemes insist only ground-floor residents can have
pets, yet not every pet needs outside access).

Staff members are encouraged to approach problem-solving with a positive, pro-pet
attitude – most issues are easily resolved and it’s vital to residents’ wellbeing to get it
right.
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Care facilities should not allow themselves to be made to feel that it’s wrong or irresponsible
to have pets in care. Council departments (including environmental health officers) often
don’t understand the importance of the human-animal bond or its benefits to residents’ health.
They are also often misinformed about the risk of animal-related disease or injury.

A Public Health Study looking at 284 nursing homes with pets found that there was
only one pet-related incident per 1,000,000 hours and that for every 1,000 nursing
home incidents only 4.5 are pet-related while 999.5 are non pet-related. There were no
cases of zoonoses or allergies.

Fears about MRSA and C.Difficile are unfounded: in fact, MRSA has only been
found in a tiny number of animals, none of which were in care homes, and in each
instance a human had given the disease to an animal! There appear to be no reported
cases of C. Difficile in animals.

Pet allergies: simple measures can be taken to reduce exposure to indoor allergens to
within tolerance thresholds (more information can be found here http://www.scas.org.uk/human-animal-bond/pets-and-older-people/pets-for-lifecampaign/research-findings/ - and then clicking on the link for the complete copy of
the SCAS report; see page 24).
Comprehensive guidance on incorporating pets in residential care and drawing up an
effective policy is available to housing providers from the following sources:

Age Concern,
http://www.ageuk.org.uk/Documents/Keeing_pets_good_practice_guide_inf.pdf?dtrk
=true

Dogs Trust, https://www.dogstrust.org.uk/help-advice/factsheetsdownloads/factsheetpetsandhousing09.pdf

The Pet Advisory Committee
http://www.petadvisorycommittee.org.uk/sites/default/files/DOG4567_Pet_Advisory_
Council_booklet_low_res_web.pdf

Q&As addressing typical concerns for housing providers
http://www.scas.org.uk/human-animal-bond/pets-and-older-people/pets-for-lifecampaign/qa-for-care-professionals/

SCAS’s Pet-Friendly Care Kit for housing providers http://www.scas.org.uk/humananimal-bond/pets-and-older-people/pets-for-life-campaign/pet-friendly-care-kit/
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