As a family of animal lovers; we had a few pets over the years;

Whilst I was working as a registered child minder we had several varities of pets;

RABBITS; the rabbets were kept in hutches in my back yard, which was also the entrance that parents and children used to come into my setting. more about rabbits as pets here

Earlier today I was chatting to the dad of 2 of the boys that I looked after and he mentioned how much his children loved walking in and taking a look in the rabbit hutches!

We did for a while breed rabbits, so the children were overjoyed to see the tiny baby kits (I will admit to being quite pleased when a couple of the parents decided to take a rabbit home for their children!).

I was always right beside the children while they were handing my pets; for the safety of both man and beast.

I also made sure that hands were washed thoroughly after touching animals.

HAMSTERS

At one time each of my sons had a hamster that they kept in cages in their rooms.

O ccasionally one of my boys would bring their pet downstairs to show the minded children, who were usually full of questions. wanting to know do they bite? What do they eat? and a few more.

More on hamsters as pets here

CAT

We had a black and white cat named Socks (as he had 4 white legs and paws).

Socks prefered to stay out of the way of the children most of the time so he had a comfy bed on top of the fridge/freezer in the utlity room.

DOG

I had a very large, very friendly German shepherd dog named Keira.

She was wxtremely child friendly so I had no worries about her with the children but I NEVER left her alone with the children, not because I was concerned about her biting, but if she jumped up she would knock a child over.

During the hours that I had minded children in the house, Keira would be in the utitly room with a high dog safety gate shutting her in.

Most of the time she slept in her crate.

If we went out through the utitly room to my car I shut her in her crate, to prevent her from jumping up until we were all outside, then I would let her out and repeat this when we came home.

I was a tad concerned when I got my dog that some parents maybe put off by me having such a large dog at home. But she didn’t seem to deter anyone as I was always a very busy, full to capacity child minder.

Read more about dogs and children here

If you do have pets as a registered child minder you dshould have a pet policy

When I sadly lost any pets the children wanted to know where they had gone more on that here

Please share any experiences of having pets as a registered child minder in the comments.

As always questions, comments and topic suggestions are welcome.

Until next time.

Karen

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