I'm not a dog person, I'm quite nervous of them & so I'm wondering if this is just my issue or not. MIL bought a puppy a couple of years ago, he's now teenager in human years. We have a 3 month old & both DP & I are uncomfortable with her approach to managing safety when we visit. She's local & we see her roughly fortnightly. It would be more frequent & I get impression she'd like it to be, but we're just so on edge about the dog. She & her partner insist that the dog would never hurt baby but hold him on lead when we're there as he's not well trained & they have little verbal control over him (they'd never admit that). Their dog has got quite upset when she's held baby & they've joked about jealousy, but we think that's not a good sign. On top of this the dog yelps loudly which makes me anxious about impact on our LO's hearing. MIL wants to babysit & has acknowledged our concerns by saying she'd keep dog away from LO. However I think they're paying me lip service as they really don't feel there's a risk. She has forgotten on one occasion to hold dog on lead. Her partner insists the dog is always in same room as them. They also let dog get very close to baby so he can sniff her so DP has started to manage this by always standing up & holding LO. The first time LO came to their house the dog was over excited & yelping a lot at the baby's cries so she wanted to leave baby of about 3 weeks in car seat in the cold utility room on her own while the dog in warm lounge calmed down. I was astounded that the dog wasn't the one put in utility room & felt it's set tone of the dog coming first. Last year there was also an incident when the dog ran at a young girl in the park, scaring her. Her father had challenged MIL about not keeping dog under control but she could not see his POV & insisted he was being neurotic & child was being ridiculous. I feel she's not being very level headed & I don't trust them to put LO safety first. I hate conflict & I don't want to create tension. Am I right to be nervous? How do I handle situation without being direct as I think they'd be hugely offended?
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