Active Dog and new baby ?? Any advice?

Orangetaster85

Hi . Just wondering if anyone can give me any positive stories about their dog and their new born baby? I have a very strong lurcher, who loves to bark at neighbours cats and dogs as they walk past ! My mam reckons it "would wake the dead" .. and he sleeps in our room few hours in the morning. I don't want to obstruct his pattern too much, as I've heard that can make them aggressive.
I'm really just looking to hear from anyone else who has been in the same situation. Did the barking bother the baby? Have you had your dog and child sleep in same room, oviously not alone.

aonb

Orangetaster85 wrote: »

Hi . Just wondering if anyone can give me any positive stories about their dog and their new born baby? I have a very strong lurcher, who loves to bark at neighbours cats and dogs as they walk past ! My mam reckons it "would wake the dead" .. and he sleeps in our room few hours in the morning. I don't want to obstruct his pattern too much, as I've heard that can make them aggressive.
I'm really just looking to hear from anyone else who has been in the same situation. Did the barking bother the baby? Have you had your dog and child sleep in same room, oviously not alone.

Dogs thrive on routine and pattern and habit. A change to their habits wont make them aggressive so much as upset/bother/stress them, but I would imagine that the arrival of a new baby in the house, apart from being a curiosity wont make a huge difference to your dog, as long as YOU dont let it. Continue to treat him as you always have done. Obviously you will have to show him the boundaries when the baby arrives. Dont freak out when he approaches the baby - he will be curious and want to investigate. If you are calm and normal, he wont see the baby as anything other than a new addition to his world.

We had two dogs when my daughter was born. She never knew life without a dog. They were part of her world from day 1. The older dog pretty much ignored her, the younger dog loved her - would try to sit beside her all the time, sat under her highchair, let her poke/prod him etc. Initially the baby would give a little 'start' if there was a bark, but she very quickly got used to barking, and would know to look to the dog when one barked.

Im a firm believer that children who grow up in a house with happy pets have healthier immune systems, and are also kinder, more emphatic, gentler and caring individuals.

njs030

Orangetaster85 wrote: »

Hi . Just wondering if anyone can give me any positive stories about their dog and their new born baby? I have a very strong lurcher, who loves to bark at neighbours cats and dogs as they walk past ! My mam reckons it "would wake the dead" .. and he sleeps in our room few hours in the morning. I don't want to obstruct his pattern too much, as I've heard that can make them aggressive.
I'm really just looking to hear from anyone else who has been in the same situation. Did the barking bother the baby? Have you had your dog and child sleep in same room, oviously not alone.

Baby will get used to the noise and that's good for you! If it's always perfectly silent you'll end up with a baby/child/teen that wakes at every noise.

Don't leave them alone but remember your dog was there first and is probably a bit confused so make sure to give lots of attention.

scarepanda

We have two husky crosses. The youngest only being about 15 months old when bubs was born, so very much still a pup. Everyone had a problem with us having the two dogs, especially with the pup.

Thankfully we've never had any issues with either dog around baby. Both dogs sleep loose in the house at night. Baby has become the pups 'baby'. He's the best/most interested in her. Constantly checking on her and strangers need to get his sniff of approval if they are holding baby. We did a bit of ground work before baby arrived, but nothing major.

The dogs barking is one noise that rarely wakes baby up! We set some ground rules from the beginning and stuck to them consistently, like not letting the pup put his two front paws up on carrycot/Moses basket, no licking baby, not allowed up beside baby on the bed etc. The dogs just get used to the new rules. We also praise and reward good/wanted behaviours around the baby and they still get the same attention as before.

Orangetaster85

Thank you all !! My knot is loosening a bit in my stomach tonight! It's stressing me out. And people saying 'oh what are you going to do' makes it harder. I am not silly, I know he's a very excitable dog. And he loves attention ( more so off other half) but we are trying hard everyday to make it easier for him when baby arrives. I suppose I just wanted to hear good stories, instead of ones where they say , I should leave him outside. He's never outside. He's soooo lazy he sleeps on couch or bed all day until other half comes home. I couldn't do that to the dog.. thanks for help everyone x

Tranceypoo

Gosh don't people love sticking their oar in where it's not wanted! I can't believe the cheek of some of the stories I've read and heard about people giving pregnant women advice about what to do with the dog, usually along the lines of get rid or leave it outside!
Some good advice here already and more to come from other posters I'm sure (I am child free so cannot help) but seems like if you put some ground work in before babs comes along all will be well
Congrats and good luck!

Orangetaster85

You would not belive what people say to you !! I hope I'm doing enough. I really don't want him getting stressed. My friend just had a baby and her two dogs are outside now. She got a fright when they jumped up beside her and baby. And I tell ye she she absolutely adores them dogs... I suppose u just never know what way you'll be....

scudzilla

We have 2 boxers, an 8yr old and a 2yr old, Pip, the 2yr old, is an idiot, but so loveable

Last July we brought our new baby home, when my wife was in hospital (for 3 nights) every night i came home i brought a baby grow that the baby had been wearing, when we finally came home we walked in and put the car seat with Aoife in it in the middle of the floor and let the dogs sniff away, they adored her from the off.

I guess if you start excluding the dog then you're going to have issues, we never excluded them in any way, at the moment she is whizzing around in a baby walker and the dogs just run away, or try to, as she chases them everywhere, Pip is all for her, she sits under her high chair, and if any strangers come into the house she makes a bee line for Aoife and sits as close as she can to her

Brodi will go upstairs to her room a couple of times a night just to look.

Like another poster said, DO NOT change any of the dogs routines for the baby as that may cause issues

DBB

Would it be a runner to put translucent sticky contact sheet on the windows to just above dog eye-level? Just on a temporary basis, to somewhat dull the outside world so he doesn't notice every single movement? Perhaps coupled with a radio or TV playing at a low level to dull outside noises? Or any way to curtail his access to the windows?
It can also be very useful to teach the dog a "go to bed" cue, so that you can get him to settle away from the window. Would a crate be an option either? They have a remarkably calming effect on doubting grandparents and other advice-givers Once they can see the dog can readily be calmly controlled, it tends to silence the naysayers

Salmon Leap

Agree 110% with Scudzilla above. We brought home babygrows that had been worn in the hospital to let our Border Collie get the baby's scent. One Of The first nights home she jumped up onto the bed while we were feeding the baby. She walked over sniffed the baby, wagged her tail and went off happy. They were inseparable after that. He had 10 great years with her. She looked after him, guarded him in his buggy. From our experience it was great to have a good pet around the child for his early years.

njs030

Must stop reading this thread.... I can't decide if I want another baby or another dog!

scarepanda

I was told by my dad, whos a big dog lover that I'd have to section off part of the shed to put the pup into. The pups a house dog through and through and when I asked dad when I'd bring the pup into the house he said for an hour every day. Dad wanted me to separate the two dogs and play favorites with them. Now that's a recipe for disaster in my opinion. No one would listen to me that he would be perfect around the baby. Yes he can be excitable, but he's also one of the most caring dogs, always wanting to know where we all are. And as it's turned out he's the best around her out of both of them. The older dog has only started to take notice of baby now that she's started to feed them some of her food from the high chair.....

Do a bit of ground work op. I set up baby's room quite early, brought the buggy for a walk around the house a few times, dirty clothes and even a few nappies were brought home from the hospital, a supervised sniffing introduction when you get home, spend some quality time with dogs, set some basic house rules around baby and be consistent and lots and lots of praise and rewards for wanted behaviors/sticking to/listening to you about the rules.

Op, my line of thought is that you sound like a great, caring dog owner. Which means you know your dog better than anyone else and have the best idea how he will react around the baby. So I'd be like thank you for your concern, but **** you to people who want you to exclude a member of your family just because a baby is about to arrive. There's few things that anger me more than hearing about people who **** the dog outside after baby arrives, or gets rid of it. They made the commitment to get the dog in the first place, it's their responsibility to make it work.

Anyways, best of luck Op. It's the cutest thing to see your baby love you're other baby, to see them laugh and giggle as soon as they see the dog and seeing that the dog is the first thing that they start moving/crawling towards.... Then you need eyes on the back of you head!

Hasmunch

notjustsweet wrote: »

Must stop reading this thread.... I can't decide if I want another baby or another dog!

dashoonage

I remember being outside the vets one day with the madra and this gentlemen of clearly better social stature than myself questioning would i leave the dog ( RB) alone with kids.

I would not says I not even for a second.

Why says he.

Well look says I, if you stuck your figure in my eye id probably bite you as well.

He walked off looking very offended for himself.

Morale of the story, if you have a bit of common sense it will be grand, You sound like you do seeing as you are planning in advance. All the best with the new arrival.

Orangetaster85

Thank you everyone! It's great to be reasured that it is possible to make it work, instead of impossible. I might look into the transluant tape for the windows aswell, thank you. And yes I will bring him home some baby gros form hospital. I have a crate we put him into if he's too jumpy and he doesn't mind it. I've been training him with a pretend crying baby doll with a blanket on it, and everytime I sit down with it he gets lovely treats. He won't make much eye contact, but I'm happy he's content to sit beside me. Im already dreading the public health nurse calling !!! MIL is a nurse and reckoned the PHN won't be too happy with our set up. House is v small. Think she's on about dog hairs, which he sheds maybe 5 a day !!!! She just wants the dog out of the house anyway...

ShaShaBear

Orangetaster85 wrote: »

Thank you everyone! It's great to be reasured that it is possible to make it work, instead of impossible. I might look into the transluant tape for the windows aswell, thank you. And yes I will bring him home some baby gros form hospital. I have a crate we put him into if he's too jumpy and he doesn't mind it. I've been training him with a pretend crying baby doll with a blanket on it, and everytime I sit down with it he gets lovely treats. He won't make much eye contact, but I'm happy he's content to sit beside me. Im already dreading the public health nurse calling !!! MIL is a nurse and reckoned the PHN won't be too happy with our set up. House is v small. Think she's on about dog hairs, which he sheds maybe 5 a day !!!! She just wants the dog out of the house anyway...

My public nurse called on my second to find a 4 month old collie pup and a 2 year old saluki rescue and never batted an eyelid. When I brought my first girl home, it was to a 10 year old collie who had ALWAYS been my baby. We took him EVERYWHERE and he slept in the bed with us all night, every night. Between myself and my husband UNDER the duvet if it was cold. I was so apprehensive because nosy, self-entitled busybodies kept telling me I should get rid of Shadow, or put him down, or outside. A bloody 10 year old dog who's entire life revolved around me! Needless to say, we got home, he took a sniff of my daughter's foot, gave it a lick and went about his business. That's it. Seriously.

mahamageehad

We visited a breeder recently and she advised us to bring a nappy from the hospital to let the dog get used to the smell. Mind you, I'm not pregnant and neither was she so it was a bizarre thing to say. :pac:

dashoonage

I think people who tell you to get rid of your dog because you're having a baby weren't hugged enough as children. Maybe there is some sort of counseling group they can go to.

Ms Doubtfire1

Orangetaster85 wrote: »

Thank you everyone! It's great to be reasured that it is possible to make it work, instead of impossible. I might look into the transluant tape for the windows aswell, thank you. And yes I will bring him home some baby gros form hospital. I have a crate we put him into if he's too jumpy and he doesn't mind it. I've been training him with a pretend crying baby doll with a blanket on it, and everytime I sit down with it he gets lovely treats.  He won't make much eye contact, but I'm happy he's content to sit beside me. Im already dreading the public health nurse calling !!! MIL is a nurse and reckoned the PHN won't be too happy with our set up. House is v small. Think she's on about dog hairs, which he sheds maybe 5 a day !!!! She just wants the dog out of the house anyway...

Fire her. You are in for the miracle of a lifetime. Dogs and babies is the best thing to have ever.My little one grew up with a boxerdog, and they loved each other

borderlinemeath

3 large dogs and a 20 month old in this house. Plus lots of visiting dogs. With my 3 there's one very loud barker, and one who was prone to jumping -and all were used to the couch and the bed. When I was pregnant I was reading that babies can hear noises from about 17 weeks gestation so I knew she wouldn't be bothered too much with the barking, and she never has been. If you have a very quiet house where you hear a pin drop, then naturally your baby will be a light sleeper but I never had a problem when baby was little with getting woken up by the dogs barking.

I never excluded them, they met her the day we came home from the hospital, they got to stay in their living room, they weren't put out in any way, baby was included on their walks, and they didn't feel left out - in my opinion, this is where problems can start, dog gets excluded, usually to the garden, so when family goes out or they get back on occasion, they are hugely excited, over enthusiastic, perhaps vocal and jumpy, so over protective parents (and grandparents!) view it as a problem behaviour so exclude them again:mad:

Loads of great suggestions above, I would also be getting some stairgates in place, my guys were used to them so I only had to put them up when baby was born, but if your dog isn't used to them it might be worthwhile installing them now. You'll have to get them eventually!

Now that she's 20 months old and a full on toddler, this is when most parents experience problems. Dogs don't really pay a huge amount of heed to newborns, they don't do much other than cry for food/changing etc, but once baby is mobile and has the ability to grasp fur, or pull tails or poke eyes is when it can all kick off. A lot of dogs don't like how toddlers move, running with arms flailing, and making high pitched noises! I'm lucky that my little girl doesn't pull or poke the dogs, she knows to give them rubs and loves playing throw the ball with them - they also view her as the best treat giver as she doesn't make them do anything for food!

Best of luck and stand your ground with parents, or those who feel their opinion is right! You'll know best and studies have shown that babies and children who grow up with pets included as part of the family suffer from far less respiratory illnesses such as asthma or allergies. Partly because homes are kept too clean, with too little healthy bacteria to develop a functioning immune system in babies and children, pets help in this respect, and also develop empathy in growing children and a sense of responsibility growing up.

Orangetaster85

And to those of you who had the dog in your room sometimes, -did ye stop letting that happen ? Oviously when they are not alone... I have stair gates in place and use them on and off , just so he gets used to it. Now he's no angel either ! I don't know of I'm jazzing him up to be this obedient dog !!! He's reactive on the lead and has got attack twice by same dog. So he's anxious. He also does the odd pee here and there in the house. All yer dogs are probably saints in comparison !!!

WeleaseWoderick

We're in a similar position to yourself in that we have a 14 month labradoodle and our first baby is on the way in September. Our dog has shown a great nature so far and I've no worries of her with the baby (obviously never left alone together) but just to make things as smooth going for everyone!

One thing we are looking for is a good belt harness for the dog when travelling in our car. Does anyone have any recommendations? The Sleepypod one seems to be the type of thing we want but is a) quite expensive and b) out of stock everywhere I look.

scarepanda

Orangetaster85 wrote:

And to those of you who had the dog in your room sometimes, -did ye stop letting that happen ? Oviously when they are not alone... I have stair gates in place and use them on and off , just so he gets used to it. Now he's no angel either ! I don't know of I'm jazzing him up to be this obedient dog !!! He's reactive on the lead and has got attack twice by same dog. So he's anxious. He also does the odd pee here and there in the house. All yer dogs are probably saints in comparison !!!

No. The older dog has always slept in our room and she wasn't moved an inch. The pup was in the crate at night when he was younger, but we had gotten into the habit of leaving him out once we knew we could trust him when we were asleep. We put him back into the crate for about a month before baby arrived, to give us a chance, at least hr was used to it again if we needed to put him in at night. But after 2 weeks he was back out loose during the night. He was as cute when she was in the moses basket as he used to do a morning and nightly check in to make sure she was OK.

And my two are not saints by any means. They are overly friendly at first and have a very exuberant welcome, especially for people they know. The older one goes through phases of not liking the post man and the pup loves the cat a bit to much (he thinks he can play with cat while in full on husky mode).

And regarding the PHN having a problem about the dog in the house and dog hair etc I would be of the opinion your baby, your dog, your house, your rules.

scudzilla

Another odd one that my wife and i were talking about earlier, When the dogs just bark at anybody passing Aoife is uninterested, if someone comes to the door they let out a different bark, if she's in her walker she'll go to get a view of the hall to see who's coming in.
If someone comes into the house who the dogs don't really like, or a stranger, then they have a different bark again, this one really upsets Aoife and she just cries, guess she knows which bark is which and acts accordingly

aonb

OP, you love your dog. You will love your baby. Dont let anyone tell you how to run your household! You make it work, so they have to accept that. For the disapproving medical types - theres evidence that shows children who grow up in households have stronger immune systems (see links below!) there is also evidence that people who have pets have less stress, lower blood pressure, healthier hearts. Set the groundrules with your dog from day 1, dont worry, have a good pregnancy, and all will be well - we would like photo of your dog now please, and with your baby when it arrives - good luck!

http://healthland.time.com/2012/07/09/study-why-dogs-and-cats-make-babies-healthier/

http://www.webmd.com/parenting/baby/news/20120709/many-babies-healthier-in-homes-with-dogs#1

http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/HealthyLiving/Owning-a-Pet-May-Protect-You-from-Heart-Disease_UCM_453586_Article.jsp#.WQpA2vnytdg

http://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/having-a-dog-can-help-your-heart--literally

Orangetaster85

Thanks again everyone! We had people and a child ovet today, and he didn't do too bad. Not great , but we were happy !!

njs030

Orangetaster85 wrote: »

And to those of you who had the dog in your room sometimes, -did ye stop letting that happen ? Oviously when they are not alone... I have stair gates in place and use them on and off , just so he gets used to it. Now he's no angel either ! I don't know of I'm jazzing him up to be this obedient dog !!! He's reactive on the lead and has got attack twice by same dog. So he's anxious. He also does the odd pee here and there in the house. All yer dogs are probably saints in comparison !!!

Ha!!! Yesterday I cleaned up 9 wees from my anxious dog because he was left in the kitchen with his doggy siblings not with his beloved human sibling.
Saint my bottom. : D