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XP Introducting Dog to Baby?
I have a 3 year old Yellow Lab/Golden Retriever mix that I resuced when she was about 4 months old. She's goofy and silly and really really really energetic. (not surprising given her mix of breeds) I'm going to be an aunt in 2 weeks or so and my dog will be spending some time with my new neice or nephew on the weekends at my family's cabin. My dog has never been agressive in any way so I'm not concerned about her trying to harm a baby but I am a little concerned about her enthusiasm and curiousity for just about everything being too much around a small child.
Any good tips for introducing a dog who, up till now has only met toddlers (without incident - even when they stuck their fingers in her eyes) to a baby? The parents are absolutely cool about having a dog around their soon to be kiddo but obviously we want this to go the best it possibly can for everyone!
Re: XP Introducting Dog to Baby?
advice i was given from our vet:
see if you can get something a head of time that has the baby's scent on it. let your dog smell that and get used to it.
and then the first time they "meet" keep them separated (different rooms) for a little bit so your dog can get used to the smell of the baby. and then slowly introduce them - maybe not having you hold baby but your sister or brother.
our vet gave us a nice packet since we will be introducing our dog to our baby next month - and that last one was a big thing - not having me hold baby while we introduced, and me spending time with our dog before introducing them to each other. but i could see it working in your situation too.
I played a baby sounds CD in our house for awhile. Then while the girls were in the hospital we brought home blankets and clothes they had worn.
The day they came home, we put them in the nursery and got them settled in and then we let Josie in. She was crazy interested the first few hours, but she chilled out and everything went fine. You have to supervise closely, but I'm willing to bet everything will be fine.
ETA: We also gave her a brand new Nylabone the day they came home and gave her lots of snuggle time.
We don't have kids yet, but I love this blog and keep it bookmarked for reference:
http://babiesandbeasts.blogspot.com/
I like this idea! One of our dogs gets a little skittish around new items. When we do have kids I have a feeling we will be buying a lot of the bigger items early on just to get him used to them.
Oh gosh, we didn't do anything really. We probably should have, but it was all so fast!
Well one thing we did do was have them smell the car seat/baby gear before there was a baby here. They got used to that kind of stuff.
Our dogs aren't allowed on our 2nd floor, so that helps. We had somewhere to go/take him that they weren't allowed.
Our one dog was oblivious. Our super-energetic, intelligent mixed breed went right into mommy mode. When we officially introduced them, my husband held the baby and I stayed with Scout (who was originally my dog). She sniffed him and was very interested, but knew immediately and instinctually that he was special and human and something to protect.
Ditto this -- we had two dogs when we brought my oldest son home -- DH stayed outside with the carseat and the baby so I could go see the dogs. Then DH came in with the baby and we left him in the carseat so the dogs could sniff but we could easily raise the carseat above them if they got too excited. We ended up lucky and they were just curious. From the minute we took him out of the carseat both dogs went into uber protective mode - stayed between the baby and the people that came to visit until we told them it was okay, etc. When the second baby came we only had one dog, but she was still very very protective of both kids. They would both run into the nursery when the baby cried, etc.