Getting our dog ready for baby

mommysd

We are hiring a dog trainer to help our dog get prepared for the baby coming home. Our dog, Dixie May, is really great with children and a total sweetheart, but could use some obedience training. I have called a few trainers and they suggested training her to walk with a stroller, training her what is the baby's and what she is allowed to touch and not touch, etc. Any other ideas to add to our list to have our trainer help us out with? I love my puppy so much and want the transition to be comfortable to her and us! Thanks for your advise!

DreamChaser246

I would ask about tips for dealing with jealousy. Your pup may be very jealous of all the attention that the baby is getting. Maybe asking about good ways to balance that dynamic!

Good luck! We've got to work on getting our pups prepared too!

Birdies08

I don't know what training your dogs already had or what is covered under teaching her what she can/cannot touch, but I think the command "leave it" is invaluable! We're still working on it with our dog, but I think it will help when the baby's here.

I've been thinking about this too, because we're enrolling our dog in level 2 general obedience, so we don't have time/money to do baby specific training, really. If you have any tips you'd like to share after working with your trainer, I bet there are a few women on here who would love to hear them!

Galena99

I agree with the command thing.  We had an amazing dog named Ralphie when DS was born.  He was great, but thank goodness he knew the "leave it" and "drop it" commands as he thought all stuffed animals were for him to tear to shreds. 

We paid a lot of attention to the dog after the baby was born (DH took him for walks, lots of hugs, etc) so the jealousy thing may not come into play much so long as you pay attention to the dog too. 

Sadly we had to put him down last April (tragically at 5 years old- kidney failure) and he won't be around for this LO.  I am hoping our two new ones are just as amazing as Ralphie was. 

bt3701

My only concern with my dog is that he does not like the sound of screams.... so I'm a little worried about how he will tolerate the crying. He gets nervous and worked up. I wonder if a trainer would have a suggestion for that. I guess I could try playing baby cry sounds on the computer, but I don't know if he would even care about that. 

Brian and Amanda

I need my dog to learn not to bark everytime someone walks by our house. Bark the mail mans here. Bark there is a person walking their dogs. Bark bark bark I want to play with those kids. If he wakes the baby up he is going to end up in the dog house.

waterfall11

Brian and Amanda:

I need my dog to learn not to bark everytime someone walks by our house. Bark the mail mans here. Bark there is a person walking their dogs. Bark bark bark I want to play with those kids. If he wakes the baby up he is going to end up in the dog house.

Not sure how much validity there is to this, but I read that right now the baby is getting used to sounds and if your dogs are barking regularly now it should be something the baby can sleep through later.  Mine don't bark much but I am very happy when they do now and make sure I am in the room so the baby is exposed to it.