Two large dogs and a new baby, help!

[jinx]

I am due our first baby in about 6 weeks and am worried how to introduce him to our 2 dogs when we get home. I have an Akita and a Labradour who are real softies with us but have been like our children for the last 3 years and are used to all the attention. How can we introduce them to this new arrival?

I hope this link on introducing your dog to a new baby helps

my poor old dog has been my 'baby' for 13 years and has been very huffy the past year since ds arrived. She seems to know her 'time is over' - v. sad but she just mopes around all day unless she is taken out for walks. But at 14 - she is deaf and has sore back legs and just likes to sleep now. She ignores the baby as much as she can and keeps out of his way. Also since ds has always 'had' her - he's not v interested in her either.

Jinx

We have 3 Siberian Huskies and I think they are fairly similar to Akita's in temprament. Ours have been wonderful with our now 4 week old daughter. They were fairly inquisitive to start with mainly at feeding times but hardly take any notice of her now really. The article Mothernature linked though mentions that its the crawling and walking stage to be aware of so we'll see! When I was in hospital I got DH to bring home one of DD's blankets to the dogs so they could get used to her smell. One thing we struggled with though was that we had tought them to "give paw" for something but it proved very tricky once the baby was here in case they caught her so we had to re-teach them to rest their heads instead. So long as you make sure that you still give the dogs plenty of affection whenever possible (!) you should be ok.

When DS was born I too was very worried as I have 2 staffordshire bull terriers they were my babies too sleeping on the sofa etc however when baby was on way around 6 weeks before I started to distant myself alittle from the no allowing them to do some things they were used to. When baby came home I made such a fuss over the dogs and intrioduced ds slowly but when baby was around i was advised by vet to treat the dogs ie choc drops that way they saw ds as something special and when ds was around they got treats !! Worked wonders and they say by baby an looked out for him he become one of the pack. They have to sent the baby so reconise a friend and pack member.