Babies and dogs

tinytriggy · September 2013

It seems like a lot of people on here have fur-babies

How did your dogs handle having a new baby in the house? Did you do anything to prepare them for the change?

julesf817 · September 2013

This is my first pregnancy, but I have a lot of dog experience, including training experience! A few things I can suggest are playing recordings of a baby crying so the dog can get used to the sound before baby comes home. also have your husband or family member bring something home with the baby's scent on it before the baby comes home so the dog can check it out. if the dog is fearful of the baby at first, let him approach the baby on his own time so he doesn't feel threatened over overwhelmed.

also, chances are you won't have as much time to spend with you dog for a while, so make sure he has some toys or bones to keep him busy. kongs are amazing. stuff one with canned dog food and freeze it and you have a busy dog for a long while.

CaliVal · September 2013

This is my baby with her fur baby. They love each other! At first he was kinda weirded out and would avoid her. We didn't do anything to prepare him except we let him take as much time as he needed to sniff/meet her.

bumpuser10093661 · September 2013

My small chihuahua min pin mix has been my daughter for 4 years plus. I know she will be in for a bigggg awakening as she will have to share my time. I'm kinda sad and nervous for her! :-S

julesf817 · September 2013

Elizabethgailr said:

My small chihuahua min pin mix has been my daughter for 4 years plus. I know she will be in for a bigggg awakening as she will have to share my time. I'm kinda sad and nervous for her! :-S

I know the feeling. My pit bull mix is 9 1/2 and he's been my best buddy since long before i even met my DH. luckily though he's slowing down as he gets older so he'll be happy to just hang with me and baby. and he's deaf so i won't have to worry about him being scared of the new sounds

thagy2012 · September 2013

I'm saw a video on introducing your dog to the new baby. They let the DH go in first and play with the dog for a few minutes. After that, the mother and baby walked in. They acted as if the baby wasn't a huge deal, the mother spoke to the dog and pet it, just as she would normally do. The dog didn't really notice the baby until they put it down. They let the dog sniff the baby, then the DH called it over and began playing with it again, then it sniffed the baby, played, etc., etc. They said this makes the dog realize the baby doesn't take away from fur-baby time. I am going to try this. I have a Great Dane and a Black and Tan Coonhound. I figure they'll be really excited at first, but then I'm sure they'll spend most of their time playing with each other and not even notice the baby, just like they ignore most people now

Empireceo · September 2013

I brought my dog everywhere with me before DS was born. I knew that it was going to be a huge adjustment for her once baby got here. She's a pretty smart dog, so she picked things up pretty quickly, but we made sure that she knew that the new baby was to be considered a pack leader. She loves him now! It's the cutest thing to see a baby snuggling on a huge rottweiler.

tinytriggy · September 2013

Great ideas! My dogs are totally my babies right now, I'll be a SAHM once the baby comes so I'm hoping the dogs are just stoked the have me home with them all the time and don't feel too jealous.

tinytriggy · September 2013

Empireceo said:
It's the cutest thing to see a baby snuggling on a huge rottweiler.

That's so cute!

runningyogimama · September 2013

DH brought a blanket home from the hospital. They've always understood that she's part of our "pack"/family. They are our baby guard dogs and love to kiss her feet and the top of her head when they walk by. My younger boxer (she's 2) occasionally gets jealous and will steal binkies, but that's the only negative. She really, really loves them, and they really, really love her.

This isn't posed...just them being a baby guard dog!

tinytriggy · September 2013

@JmeJme your baby+dogs picture is so cute it's making me cry.... I'm clearly too hormonal

runningyogimama · September 2013

Seriously, half of my pics are my furbabies with my baby!

Okay, one more...love at first sight!

tinytriggy · September 2013

@JmeJme omg that is the sweetest thing I have EVER seen.

buggywhips · September 2013

My dogs are kid haters (always have been, it's weird) but they have tolerated M fairly well. They were 100% ok with him as a baby, but once he was mobile it became more of an issue. One dog kind of likes him I think, the other doesn't care for him. They are very good with warning him when he pushes their buttons, we just have to teach him to know what their warnings mean. He's too young to grasp the concept yet, but we're working on it!

laurn321 · September 2013

All these stories of dogs getting along with the babies bums me out... we have a 5 year old Westie who has to be confined to a separate area of the house when my guy is awake. I was suspicious before he came along that it wouldn't work out, but she was surprisingly fine from months 0-5. Once he started crawling though and it was no longer on her terms, all bets were off. She's lunged after him a couple of times and scratched/bruised him.

Two behavioralists later, anxiety and calming meds, and holistic treatmeans, we were basically told that they should never be in the same room together. We couldn't bear to give her away so we keep her in the bedrooms and him in the family room/kitchen separated by a baby gate.

mer313131 · September 2013

My dogs had no problem with the transition, and I have a very attention-hungry pug. They just seemed to understand that Emily was part of the family right away. I followed others' advice and had DH bring a blanket with the baby's scent home from the hospital before we came home with the baby. It worked well, they went nuts sniffing and then my pug laid next to it! Not all dogs are this easy though. Some need more attention than others and or additional training from a professional.

rMe6411 · September 2013

We got a 5 month old German shepherd/lab mix when DD was 6 months old... Don't ask me why. I was obviously not thinking clearly LOL. The dog just wanted to play all the time with DD. Now shes a year old and she's still got a lot of puppy tendencies but never bothers DD. If other kids are over, she is all over them. My mom has two teacup Chihuahuas. One of them is extremely smart. She had been guarding baby items since before DD was born. When DD came, she would not let anyone even close to her unless it was me. Now our cat, that's a different story. Our cat was TERRIFIED of DD for about 3 months she was in hiding. She's warmed up to her now but still keeps her distance.

KaraS12 · September 2013

I'm a little nervous too, so I've been reading up on some ways to make sure our sweet pup adjusts well. He has met LOs on walks and does alright, but wasn't sure what to do when our 18 month old niece visited. Wasn't aggressive, but they were both confused. Book I've liked most so far is "and baby makes four " it was really helpful for s to use some of those training techniques.

flutepharm87 · September 2013

We didn't really do anything to prep our pup for the boys, but we really have to watch it when they play together. He loves those boys, but he's a big boy (husky) and has no idea how strong he is. He sometimes unintentionally knocks them down, but usually he's super good with them.

hsal · September 2013

We weren't as lucky as others. We had two dogs, a corgi mix and a Chihuahua mix. We had DH go in with a blanket first, introduced slowly, didn't change the dogs patterns and while the corgi mix was fine with the baby, the Chihuahua mix wanted nothing to do with her.

The Chihuahua mix dog would go through laundry and shred the babies clothes, pee on the floor in the baby's room (even if she had just gone out) and it got worse when the baby got mobile.

we tried 3 different behavior programs and nothing helped. One day the baby was on the floor "crawling" and the Chihuahua came right up behind her and bit her foot. Our friend took her in but it wasn't safe to have the dog around anymore.

The corgi mix and her are best friends still now and the "baby" is over 2.

SoxFan777 · September 2013

The most important thing we did is get her off the furniture. She was the princess and needed to be reminded that she was a dog. She's been pretty great ever since!

MeredithElese · September 2013

We have 2 long haired dachshunds and I think we "involved" them in a lot of the baby gear that was coming in. Might have put one in a sling to try in out and the other in a carrier. $:\$ "> lol My family actually stayed at our house while we were at the hospital and at some point DH came home and showered and saw them. When we brought DD home, DH held her and got down on the floor while I sat in a chair. We let them sniff her and kiss her hands as needed, and they came back and forth being in my lap and checking her out. He is their 'Alpha' so we felt like they would be more cautious an accepting if he did it. They're obsessed with her, but our older one has gone through several phases of not wanting to be near her. When she does, we just make sure she has a safe place to be out of the way. We respect their space and DD is not allowed in their crate. We tried to not be too controlling about letting them be around her or giving kisses, whatever (within reason obvi). We didn't want them to be afraid of her or associate her with being in trouble.

rainydayluck · September 2013

We have 2 dogs and a cat. Before DD was born we let them in the nursery, but didn't allow them to rough house in there or bring their toys in there. We played baby crying sounds, took them for walks with the stroller, played the swing etc.
When we came home, we let all the sniffing happen. We always made sure the dogs had their own place (DD was never allowed in their beds or crates), taught DD to never take their toys, hurt them, etc. A lot of it is teaching your child to respect the animals. It is not "cute" for the kid to climb on the pets, steal their toys, etc.

One dog is totally fine (for two night she barked every night when the baby cried before she got used to it), the cat did fine once he got used to the crying and our third dog had a hard time adjusting once she became mobile. He was scared of her and would growl if she came too close to him or he felt trapped. We would remove DD and never punish the dog for growling. Over time he now doesn't mind her being close and when she started eating, he realized she dropped food and he likes her now.

GoldenGibson · September 2013

We have a golden retriever and he's always been great with kids so we were never concerned about him with DS. We didn't do anything to prepare our dog and he's been great since day 1. He does tend to forget how big he is and has knocked DS down a few times accidentally but it's NBD really. They're besties!

mrspopsicle · September 2013

I was amazed at how well my dog did and we did nothing to prepare him. For a long time he just ignored DD. Now he lets her climb all over him! She does get knocked over once in a rare while, but usually she just hops back up.

raeg13 · September 2013

My dog was never aggressive at all, but she didn't want to have anything to do with baby at first. Every time he would cry, she would get up, give us a dirty look and leave the room. We didn't do anything really to prepare her for it, so I don't know if that would have helped or not. Now that my son is older, she likes him a lot more now

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