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Posted By Mark Preston
I'd like to find some guidance on controlling the risks of manual handling of live animals - specifically dogs. I'm sure there must be something out there in the veterinary field but I've not found anything on the web. Please help before I'm forced to write to Rolf Harris.
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Posted By Bryn Maidment
Mark
A few ideas:
Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, Police Dog Handling/Training Establishments, RAF Dog Handling Units, Battersea Dogs Home, any vet training establishment.
Best of luck!
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Posted By Ken Taylor
The RSPCA should be able to help on this - and some local authorities have dog wardens who would, hopefully, have researched this issue as part of their risk assessments.
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Posted By Mark Preston
Thanks Bryn, I've made a little progress on your suggestions - though it certainly looks as if there's work out there for enterprising safety consultants supporting the veterinary profession - employee safety and welfare seems to come secondary to animal health and welfare
Ken, thanks for your suggestions - I'll follow up the first, but as for the second - unfortunately it's our dog wardens' risk assessment efforts I'm attempting to support...
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Posted By Ken Taylor
When I was with a London Borough (some years ago) the issue arose as to whether to issue 'dog dazers' to employees. These are devices that look like torches but emit a high frequency note inaudible to humans - but not dogs, cats, etc (unless they are completely deaf!). The Head Warden (being a dog lover?) opposed this at the time but I did get one myself - which proved quite useful and comforting for when I had to inspect fairgrounds (the operators have some interesting 'pets' that like to challenge your presence while you are looking for the operator's caravan, etc). Personally, I am inclined to think these 'dazers' a reasonable control measure in terms of risk assesment when used sensibly and would be interested to hear if others use them now.
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Posted By Bryn Maidment
Ken
Also a few years ago, when in a London LA, I had to look into the same thing. The Dog Dazer was recommended to me by someone in the Royal Mail where they had conducted successful trials with it. This was about 1992 when the Dangerous Mutts Act came out. The only problem was, I believe , that a certain percentage of dogs are partially or totally deaf. Certain breeds are far more prone to this deafness and guess what?...some of these breeds happen to be the more aggressive or tempestuous type!
Use of such devices should be accompanied by doggy psychology bullet points e.g. don't stare, don't run, turn away from them, use friendly 'baby' talk etc.
Useful lesson in this lot is that even when you think you've found the answer keep looking for solutions!!
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Posted By Diane Warne
Mark,
There does seem to be an extraordinary gap in guidance on this subject. I had a look at the HSE guidance "Farmwise" - this has plenty of guidance on manual handling, and a little on handling livestock, but nothing on manual handling of livestock! Complete neglect of the fact that animals have to be lifted and carried at times.
I suppose you could treat this as a normal manual handling risk assessment and consider the animals under "does the load have any unusual properties" - e.g. wriggliness, possession of jaws with teeth, etc.
This is certainly an issue for vets (small female vet has to get large Rotteiler onto operating table, for example) but I don't know how they deal with it.
Good luck!
Regards
Diane
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Posted By Mark Preston
Diane, I think you're right - back to first principles - although I'm contacting the National Dog Warden Association on spec and in my web wandering I found this;
This is the best guidance on the web I've found so far (and it's very well presented)-though more applicable to a vet's practice or an academic setting than a dog warden's van.
http://www.vetmed.wsu.edu/courses_vm568/sam.html
As for any livestock bigger than a dog - unless you have Desperate Dan to hand I think I'd go for mechanical devices - Archer's listeners may recall the trouble David Archer had on New Year's eve when the cow fell on him.
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