My pup is suuuuper anxious right now. Very similar to how he was during my pregnancy with DS. One thing I suggest big time is to work with your animal prior to baby coming along. Our pup hates, absolutely hates, when I or DS cry. He will even start moaning and crying himself to show us how it effects him. We have worked with him a ton since DS was born (reactively not proactively...we should have done it while I was preggers) with showing him his safe place when things are loud in the house and tensions are high. He still is incredibly anxious, but this practice has saved us from having to give him up or change our situation in some way. He now just goes to his place when he feels uncomfortable and this place doesn’t have a broadcasting baby monitor in it so he can be as far away from disturbing cries as possible.
@MaggieG183 Interesting! Our dog trainer does pre-baby lessons but honestly we weren't going to worry about it with our dog as she is perfection with kids. We have had our friends' kids over at all ages and she just wants to be close, wants to play with them when they're big enough, takes food and other smuggled goodies with a gentleness that we never see in her otherwise ... But your story really makes me wonder how she might change when it's our baby in the house full time. I'd never thought of crying as an issue like that. I'll definitely be doing more research now. Thank you.
@missmcgonnagal our dogs have always been great with kids too but the crying definitely threw them off too. They aren’t anxious really, but you could tell they were confused and just not really sure what was going on. I had heard to play YouTube videos of babies crying before baby is born to get them used to it, and I totally forgot during my pregnancy. I wish we would have done that for sure.
@missmcgonnagal our dog has always been a bit anxious but he’s been a dream with kids and small animals (he has been amazing with all our chickens as chicks and now grown birds...he’s a working bird dog too). Like he’d never hurt a fly... cuddles with my son, softest mouth ever when taking a dog treat from anyone, especially children, but baby/toddler/mommy cries? He turns into a puddle and can’t handle the world. He’s literally a different dog. And it was totally not something we anticipated. To train him to find his place, we did what @aels12 said and played babies and toddler cries in various parts of the house from YouTube starting furthest away from him and teaching him his safe spot and then slowly bringing it in closer proximity to him (because it was reactive training, it took us 3-4 months of training to help him learn. If we had done it before baby came, it probably would have just taken a couple weeks) so he could handle the crying and finding his safe spot as the stress or tension in the house increased. Now, we always, after someone cries, go and give him a pet and a treat for finding and staying in his safe place. It was tough for a while there though. I’d definitely be proactive in training just to give them all the tools to be successful even if they never need to use them.
@missmcgonnagal yes! I typically have two 55 pound Coonhound son me at all times when I’m sitting or laying. I mean, I love them, but I need some space!
Re: Pets and Pregnancy