XP: Introducing baby to your pets

Kirss

 

I have two lab mixes. The older one whose 5 (Bear) I?m not so worried about but the 3 (Millie) year old rescue? kind of nervous. Neither have been around anything small, besides my dad?s dog , who is only 25lbs, and Millie clamped down on its neck, thankfully didn?t break skin but it was definitely scary to see.

I?m just unsure what to do when the baby comes. I?ve been reading Caesar Milan books, and it says to bring the blanket and let the dogs get the scent, then bring in the baby and let the dogs sniff around in a supervised environment, and the trainer we took them too told us to do the blanket thing and then let the dogs lick the babies face, which just seems intense.

Anyone else in a situation like this?

MrsJRD23

PittieBoo's blog has a lot of good info.  Here's a link to the MOST IMPORTANT post:

http://www.babiesandbeasts.blogspot.com/search/label/The MOST IMPORTANT post in here

and her blog in general which has a few book recommendations in the right margin:

http://www.babiesandbeasts.blogspot.com/

 

RedheadBaker

Wow. I actually agree with something Cesar Millan says. I guess there's a first for everything. 

Anyway . . .

I started preparing my dogs ASAP after I found out I was pregnant, using PittieBoo's blog and the book Childproofing Your Dog by Brian Kilcommons. We set up all the baby gear early. I started using the baby's shampoo and lotion on myself occasionally. We got the "Preparing Fido" CD and played baby sounds while going about our day, so the dogs would get used to the sound. 

SO did the blanket thing early in the day we were discharged from the hospital. When we actually brought the baby home, I stayed out in the car with the baby while SO brought the dogs outside. Our plan was to treat it as if we were bringing another dog home -- introduce everybody on neutral territory, go for a walk, go into the apartment together. But, we were held at the hospital longer and didn't get home til 7 pm, it was raining and there were other dogs outside (my shepherd is reactive to strange dogs).

So, the dogs ended up getting one sniff of the baby outside before we all went inside. The dogs stayed on-leash and were allowed to sniff the baby one at a time.

Despite the preparations, the dogs were still anxious (which we completely expected). We already had a baby-gate up, so we could keep the dogs away from the baby when they got too stressed out. We would bring the dogs out one at a time to hang out with us and the baby and they got lots of praise and treats for positive interactions (sniffing and walking away, for example). It took a week or so, but they eventually calmed down.  

Kaiene

Definitely prepare early!

We have cats, so I will defer to pittieboo's blog and RHB.

We also did the blanket and hat thing.  In addition, we tried to set up some baby stuff ahead of time to let the cats check it out.  We also bought a toy baby doll that made noise.  We would hold it and play baby noises.  The cats didn't react to it, other than to lift their heads from their naps and look around.

They have adjusted pretty well.  B and J lurve their brother, and L, S and SB will hang out in the same room with us/him, but don't get too close. 

ETA:  I delivered 2 weeks early, so things were a bit hectic at first and SB had a hard time.  My mom and step dad stayed with us for a few days and we barely saw SB.  He is doing ok now.

Kirss

Thanks everyone comments and suggestions, I will be ordering those books today!

berrda04

I'm trying to get my dogs around babies as much as possible. My older dog is very attentive to the babies he's around and wants to be near them and me, the pup do far has only cared when the baby is crying she tries to figure out what it is and what's going on. I'm not sure which one is good or not, as I still need to get that book, but we introduce them the every baby related item that we've gotten/bought so far.. Which isn't much since we are only 15 weeks.