Our Dog and a New Baby

Long Road 8378

Hi

We currently have a near 3 year old Lab/Staffie X. He is a perfect little guy, such a fab personality and really friendly. He is our baby, for the moment! However, we are due our first baby in January and are wondering if anyone has any tips on getting our wee man used to the new arrival. Is there anything we can do to 'prepare' him? We are really excited about the new bub but at the same time we don't want our dog to feel left out. I can imagine there will be a slight sense of jealousy as he is quite spoiled!

Thanks.

TooManyDogs

Here's a copy and paste of a post I put up a while ago cos I'm too lazy to type it again!

"Here's my advise for what it's worth. My baby is 17 months now and I brought her into a house with 6 dogs!

First things I'd do is change the dynamics to make sure it's clear you guys are in charge of your house and that your dog isn't getting spoiled anymore, it'll mean that your dog realises you can decide who you give your attention to. This you need to change by implimenting the Nothing In Life for Free training, ie he gets nothing nice without doing something for it, even if it's as simple as a sit. This will get him used to looking to you for direction rather than making decisions about things himself and also spruce up his basic obedience. So he doesn't get a treat or dinner without doing something for it, doesn't get on sofa or beds without being invited, doesnt' get to shove through doors ahead of you, doesn't get to demand attention off you. Start bringing things to being solely on your terms.

Do work on basic obedience, especially the 'leave it' and 'stay' commands. Make sure he has a bed he's comfortable with and make sure he'll stay in it when you tell him too. You'll have a lot of visitors and it could very well happen that he decides to protect the baby from the visitors, he needs to know that you can protect the baby and it's not his job.

Get baby gates in now and let him get used to being behind them, you can start with a few minutes and reward and let him out, gradually increase the time he's in a seperate room until you know he'll be comfortable seperated for a while if you need him to be.

Do bring home an article of clothing from the hospital, let him have a quick sniff but then teach him to stay at least 6 - 10 ft away from the smell. Dogs don't need to be right beside a new baby, a mother dog doesn't allow other dogs anywhere near her pups and demands huge space from other dogs in the vacinity, demand the same for your baby. I promise your dog won't be offended, in fact it'll be completely natural for him. Demanding space makes it clear to your dog that it's your baby and you'll demand respect and protect it so he doesn't need to. As the baby gets older you can gradually reduce the space you demand, my lot didn't get anywhere near my baby until she was nearly 6 months old.

Keep him as tired as possible when you bring the baby home, a tired dog is far less likely to get jealous and far easier to train. When people offer to do something to help you out then hand them a lead and a poo bag!!! Honestly it'll make all the difference. Do train your dogs to walk nicely without pulling now, and walking with a buggy if possible, you simply won't have the energy after the baby is home so if that's already done you can just grab leads when you have to pound the pavement with the buggy (if your baby is anything like mine was anyway!!)"

Long Road 8378

Hello TooManyDogs

First of all, apologies for such a late reply, it has been a while since I was able to visit this site myself.

Thanks a million for your reply, I read your reply last night and I was delighted with all the advice. We have already started to give our dog more boundaries in the house and we are delighted to see that he does not seem to hate us for it and is not packing his bags and leaving us either!! It's early days but starting now should give us all time to adjust.

It was great to get advice from someone who has been in the same position, I have tried googling this but got so much conflicting advice that our heads were spinning.

Thanks again!