Dogs and babies - help please!

[Pootles2010]

I'm hoping to get some advice from dog owners please... We don't have a dog, my family growing up never had one, so i've always been a bit wary/nervous of them. However my mil has the most lovely old english sheepdog, he's about 9 months now i think, so as you would imagine a bit boisterous, but very well trained.

He's so well natured, and will only play rough when you want to iyswim - for example, he'll try to play with my dp, but not with me because he knows he's not to jump up at me - so he just comes to me for a fuss.

We're expecting our first ds in July, and i know we'll be spending a lot of time at mil's, which is fine, i've no issues with the baby being around the dog supervised. The problem is my dp thinks its ridiculous to object to leaving him around the dog on his own, and that his mum would be very offended if i raised this. She's lovely, and has already offered to babysit, so I dare say he'll be round their house a lot. So, am i being ridiculous to think there's a problem with leaving a baby unattended with a dog? He's very good dog as i mentioned, but still a dog, so i don't know...

I didn't want to post this in AIBU because i didn't really want people getting all riled...

Thanks for your help! And sorry for going on a bit...

Probably nothing will go wrong. But probably is not good enough in my books.

I love dogs. I have always owned at least one dog. I would never, ever leave them unattended with a baby/young child. Because you can never know 100% that the dog will not turn on the child.

Especially toddlers. If the toddler pulled the dogs tail/yanked it's ear/ripped out a clump of it's hair because it knew no better would the dog retaliate?

Every dog owner will tell you the same. I call my dog to follow me when I leave the room so he is never alone with dd2. It's no hardship. He is not keen on being left alone with dd2 anyway. He'd much rather be with me. I might do something exciting like start cutting fat off bacon/get his lead/go to the fridge for treats/find the cat etc.

I have a very bouncy springer (and had 2 of them when ds1` was a baby). My experience was that dogs+small babies was no problem at all. Neither was interested in the other and they both used to run away and hide when I was feeding the dcs (whether bf or ff).

Dogs+toddlers is another matter altogether. My dogs got very anxious when the babies started moving. My dcs are/were obsessed with following the dog around, trying to sit with them in their beds, pull their tail, flap their ears.

My MIL's dog used to stay with us a lot but no longer does. She is an old girl and finds the dcs too much, and would snap at them if they annoyed her.

Fwiw, my dog doesn't like being left alone in a room with the dcs and follows me everywhere so it is never really necessary to remove him from the dcs. If I'm with them but they are being noisy and annoying he'll go and hide in a quiet corner somewhere.

The issue of children being left alone with dogs is nicely summed up by one dog behaviourist she shows a picture of a child and a dog and then points to the child saying 'this one is learning to be quiet and well behaved' and then points to the dog and says 'and this one is also learning to be quiet and wellbehaved, neither of them can do this if they are left alone together.'

My friend has 2 vwey well behaved dogs and 4 young children. She NEVER leaves them unsupervised together because it would be her fault if anything happened. Not the dogs, not the childs.

Totally agree that toddlers are the really hard thing for dogs to live with. Babies aren't too bad - my dogs were just bemused. Having said that, I'd never have left them together unsupervised. Nothing a couple of stairgates can't fix.

As soon as babies start to pull themselves up and wobble around on their feet they become terrifying and threatening to dogs. There are few things I hate more than to see a dog being mauled by a small child while the owner breezily yaps on about how great the dog is with kids. A dog can be great with kids but their reward for this should be peace and quiet and respect, not being treated like a stuffed toy.

I agree that your DP won't feel the same once baby arrives. If he does though, and he still thinks it's ridiculous, then YOU will have to raise this with MIL I'm afraid, because it's non-negotiable IMO.

It's received wisdom that you shouldn't leave a child with a dog unsupervised - every single pet book and childcare book says it somewhere. Just point this out to everyone and get your mil some stairgates. Also tell them that you will worry about it all the time, and it's crucial for your peace of mind that they convince you they're taking it seriously.