Pets (non-htt)

jacksjerseygirl

If you have 'children' at home (in the way of pets), what are your plans for them at time of adoption?

With DA you might be away from home for at least 2 weeks if not more, then all of a sudden you come home with a crying baby! with IA, you leave and then come home with, in some cases, a toddler who can already crawl/walk and uh pull on fur (in a loving way of course)!

We have a pet sitter for our cat when we travel, since he has medicine twice a day, but any time we leave him for more than a week when we come home is all freaked out by the littlest of sounds.

candm

We will board Chester while we're traveling.

We have practice introducing a new child to him, but it will be a bit different with our oldest two. They have already been introduced to him through pictures. In fact, our son started calling all dogs "Chester". I think we'll just have to take it one step at a time and teach them each to respect each other. Chester has a crate that is his safe place, if necessary.

Dr.Loretta

We are down to one cat (last year was a bad year).

When we are OOT, he generally is on his own except for a friend who drops by to check on him. While he likes people, he's totally fine being on his own. He's not much into being in a multi-cat household, but more people are fine.

I read long, long ago that the person who the animal is more attached to should come home empty-handed, and let the person the animal is less attached to bring the baby into the house. So I plan on having DH arrive first, sans baby (it's really his cat), and i'll bring the baby in.

We've seen our cat around babies and toddlers, and he's fine with them. I don't see too huge of an adjustment period, as long as he has his own place to go where no one will bother him.

jacksjerseygirl

fredalina:

We have very large dogs, and at the moment our only plans to adopt are through foster/adopt, now that we've been approved.

Our placement of the 2 toddlers was... interesting.  It was obvious they'd never been around pets.  Also, the boy was petrified, not just of our dogs but of all animals, including a VERY friendly neighborhood cat!  He would scream and run away if they got within 20 feet or looked like they were coming toward him.  The little girl reacted also, but i think because of her brother and not her own fears.  It made me wonder if he had been taught to fear animals, or had had a bad experience, or was just a "scaredy-cat" in general lol.

We got a really nice, tall baby gate that we can put up to separate the kitchen from the living room.  For the first few days, the dogs spent the days outside and/or in the garage, except for naptime and after the kids were in bed.  After that, and the kids were more used to seeing the dogs through the glass doors, we put up the gate and let them get used to them that way.  Had they stuck around, we would have introduced the girl to one of the dogs in a controlled setting over the weekend, and slowly exposed the kids to them.

i know that's probably not what you're asking, but it fits our particular situation.

I forgot to put FA - it's all the same to our pet-children (they don't care how the other little person got there lol just that their world has been rocked!).

Our cat is 13 and he has never been around children for a prolonged period of time. He normally goes and hides for a nap when friend's children come over. All of whom are also afraid of cats because they haven't been around pets either. To give them credit, our cat is 18 pounds and probably looks like a lion to them. lol

FinallyMrs.G

We have one small dog that is very friendly. We are doing a domestic adoption. My in-laws will take our dog for as long as we need them to.

BurkeJax

We have plenty of family near by that can watch the dogs for us. We leave the dogs with my parents if we leave town. We watch their dog for them when they are gone. If they cannot we have allllllllll of DH's family within 5 miles of us.

TTCgradstud

Our plan had been to have a family member stay with the cats (I have 4, +one that is my mom's. ::hangs head in crazy cat lady shame::) But we tried that out with the match that failed and I swear he didn't touch the litter boxes once while he was here for 4 days- and went away for the weekend.  So that plan is out.  We have other family that I know would stop by to feed them and clean up, but my cats are pretty social so I worry they would get lonely, depending on the timing if my parents are back from their extended vacation, one or both of them would probably be willing to come up for a chunk of time to help out.  And/ or we would hire a professional cat sitter to stop by play with them and feed them. 

We've tested them with friends' children, and they do okay.  Mostly they aren't so interested in the little ones and hide from the over excited older ones.  But I think they will adapt better with a baby since they will get used to the noises before the baby is old enough to catch them!