Grandma's problem dog and a baby?

[BretstheBoomKing]

I'm about to have my first baby, and am stressing about childcare and my Mum's dog. The dog is a terrier and he's completely spoiled by her.. he is her surrogate baby, which is usually very sweet.
However, went for a walk the other day with Mum and saw an old friend with baby in pram. Dog started growling and leaping up at the pram, clearly desperate to get at her. She didn't tell him off for snarling, just laughed and pulled him away.

I had an idea that Dog wasn't a fan of children, but this has really brought home that it will not be safe for baby to be around him. My Mum is obviously wanting to look after baby in future, so how should I tell her I won't be okay with this when Dog is around. When I say the dog is her baby, I mean it- she thinks the sun shines out of his little doggy bum and that he can do no wrong:o
Any thoughts?

I think you will have to emphasise that the dog is not to be trusted around the baby, remind your mum of the incident where the dog growled at the friends pram etc, and that you would not want to risk that for your own child.

You can say that as prams/babies are obviously a source of stress for the dog, it would be in the dogs best interest to not have the baby at her/the dogs house. If she just laughs and says he'll be fine, you will have to tell her firmly that this is your baby and you will do whatever it takes to keep him/her safe. If that means your mum visits the baby at your home and the dog stays at hers so be it. Get your DH to back you up too. I don't think this will go down well, but there is nothing she can do about it. I'm not sure there is a nice way to say it.

I wouldn't be confident to leave my baby at a house where the dog was spoilt and badly trained, and where you could not guarantee the dog was kept shut away from the baby. So it is down to your mum to accept your right as a parent to make your own decision regarding caring for your child.

I would never leave a baby unsupervised with dogs, we have four dogs and cope with room dividers, stair gates and pens. Having said that it might be worth assessing what your mum's dog is actually like with a baby. Just because he barked at the pram does not mean he knew there was a baby in there or that he was trying to get to the baby to attack it. More likely than not he is not used to prams and barked because it seemed like a fun thing to do (the same way dogs may bark at hoovers or lawnmowers).

The main thing is to talk to your mum and come up with a plan of action that gives the dog the opportunity to be safely introduced to the baby and go from there.

Booboostoo maybe a well supervised test to see how he reacts to a baby might be good idea. Not that we'll be leaving them alone ever. With him being a terrier, I think he's just hardwired to want to go after small squeaky things.

girly I think my Mum knows deep down that the dog is spoiled. I just don't think she'll accept that there might be a safety issue. It's like trying to tell someone that their child is really badly behaved, except that this child has sharp teeth

I can guarentee you that terriers are not hardwired to go after small, squeaky human babies, presuming you are human, your baby is safe from being thought of as prey. You are human aren't you? If you are a rabbit you are doomed

Jokes aside, there could have been any number of reasons that the terrier jumped at the pram. Most likely is that he doesn't see many prams and was nervous/excited. I highly doubt he was after the contents of the pram unless there was a rabbit in there?

Just keep them closely supervised. Particularly when your child is older and moving more. No child should be left alone with any dog, no matter how friendly they seem. Any dog can snap under the right conditions and small children are excellent at accidentally creating those conditions.

Terriers can and do make fantastic family pets because they are always up for fun. They are not necessarily hardwired to kill everything small and squeaky either. Saying that, I have a terrier and would love a kitten but i cant have one because i dont trust my dog so........... I do howver trust him with my OLDER child.

I think you have to sit down and have a very serious talk with your mum about this - you are clearly anxious and this needs to be handled very carefully. I woudl repost this in "the doghouse" to see if you can get some advice. It is your mums reactions that are fueling the dogs behaviour - he needs some positive association. We bought a CD of baby sounds that we woudl play to our dog when we had DD. He was very curious about DD, we let him sniff her when we bought her home but made it clear he was to keep away - and we NEVER EVER left him alone with her (this was a rottie so extra vigillant for obv reasons), he accepted her as part of the family pretty quick, she would get the occasional face wash (yuck i know) but mostly he ignored her. HOWEVER, i would have rehomed this dog once she was mobile and had put plans in place to do so but sadly he died before this happened.

FFS.

There is no need to rehome a dog once a baby becomes mobile. Just supervise them. It's not fucking rocket science.

My dogs are trained to follow me around the house because I am lazy and it's easier to put the work in at the start and train them to stay with me, than it is to constantly be calling them to come after me.

Errr, excuse me, but you know nothing about that situation. I would never have considered rehoming him if it wasn't absoutely necessary. He was a rotweiller that i took on from battersea rehab, he had serious aggression issues around food etc. We worked long and hard on getting that dog to a good place, it cost us thousands. My DD was a big surprise, i already had a teenager and wasn't planning anymore, we also didn't plan to get rid of him either, but something happened that made it clear that he wouldn't be 100% safe with my DD and i could not take that chance with a ten stone dog! I had found him a home, but he got sick so it never happened. He was going to go and live with the guy who helped us train him. My heart breaks whenever i think about him so no, its not fucking rocket science, but its not fucking straightforward either so it might be an idea to ask before you jump in with both feet.

The point i was trying to make is, its easy when they are babies, but when children get mobile its suddenly much more difficult and this is the time when the OP shoud be putting safeguards in place, not rehoming the dog, but ensuring that things are set up to keep the dog separate.

You worded your first post as though you believed that dogs and mobile babies/toddlers should not be mixed at all to an OP who is already panicking about a family dog.

Dogs are not disposable. In 99.99% of cases there is no need to rehome a dog once a baby comes along.

Food aggression is common. Dogs should not be fed around small children and children should be taught to stay away from the dog's food, treats and toys. They should always be supervised closely.

I think that the problem will be the grandmothers refusal to accept that there could be a problem. How could the OP have any peace of mind leaving the baby with her, if she thought her wishes were going to be ignored and that the GM thinks there is no issue of safety. It would only take the GM to decide that it would be unfair to keep the dog behind a gate rather than in the room with her and the baby, and then pop out to answer the door or something leaving them unsupervised. I think that a dog who thinks it is the centre of it's owners world will be very jealous when she shows lots of affection and attention to the new baby.

Yes do ask for advice on the doghouse (under the pets topic), there are lots of ways to get dogs used to babies. Shame the same training can't be applied to some humans!

I agree with you, but this was one of the situations where it was not possibe to keep him. I sought advice everywhere and everyone told me that i wouldnt be able to keep my dog - believe me, it was the last thing i wanted to hear, but i knew it was right. It was never my intention to rehome him once pregnant, we knew he had work to do, but this dog had serious issues that just made him unsuitable around a toddler. In the real world, tough decisions have to be made. As it stood, he would have had a great home, but he got sick so we kept him on the understanding that once he recovered his new owner would take him and we would pay any furhter costs (so not shirking responsibility to the dog in any way) but he didn't recover and i will take the guilt of even thinkin about rehoming him to my grave, we only considered this because he bit my eldest daughter (17 at the time) because she trod on his foot by accident - turned out he had bone cancer in that leg :( we didnt know that at the time, and could not take the chance of keeping him, we just couldn't. I spoke to rottie rescue, vets, battersea and everyone strongly advised against keeping him. Thankfully no one judged my decision, which was sadly taken out of my hands.

Thanks everyone. girlwhirly is right; I think a lot of the issue is getting my mum to accept that the dog is king of the castle atm and there might be jealousy issues when baby comes along.
I didn't know about the doghouse, so I'll have to ask over there.
Thank you again:)