Take a look at Net::SSH::Expect... I use it quite a lot, and it works really well. It has configurable timeouts for connections, and many other options. Below is an example from one of my scripts:

        my $ssh = Net::SSH::Expect->new (
                host => "$serverlist[$host]",
                user => "$user",
                raw_pty => 1,
                restart_timeout_upon_receive => 1,
                timeout => 5,
                ssh_option => " -x -o ConnectTimeout=4",
                log_file=> "/tmp/$serverlist[$host].log",
        );
[download]

One difference is that this module expects to use an SSH key instead of an interactive password. I don't know if that's an issue for you or not.