Slightly jealous dog and new baby arriving soon - any tips?

[wombatinwaiting]

Hi there - I'm 37 weeks today and we have an adorable pooch, Lucy, who we brought home from a dog shelter about 2 months ago after our last lovely pooch was sadly knocked over by a car and we had to have her put down.

Lucy is a Saluki cross and suited to being in a one pet family (although we have a cat who was here before her and they got on fine after about a week's Mexican stand off) as she gets very protective of us when other dogs (and some people) are around.

A couple of tips I have read are to bring home a babygro or similar from the hospital in advance of the baby and to have the moses basket etc around so she gets used to it. If anyone else has any other tips / advice, I'd be most grateful.

in advance!

Obviously that is a babygro that junior has already worn rather than some random babygro of another child or a new one !

Prob worth asking on the doghouse if you want actual suggestions rather than just the "omg dog + baby = chomp chomp chomp" hysteria.

Jealous though - I'd love a saluki (got a gorgeous greyhound X saluki that walks around here whom I'd take home in a heartbeat)!

Look into reward based training, the aim would be getting your dog to see the baby as a positive thing rather than something to be jealous or frightened of.
Like you said, bring the babygro that your lo has already been wrapped in back home so she can get used to the smell.

You need to try to introduce your dog to the new baby sounds that she'll be hearing. There are CDs available that you can buy, or just play clips from youtube. Play these sounds quite a few times during the day, gradually increasing the volume so Lucy can get used to the sound without getting scared. Decrease the volume if she seems anxious - you want to build up positive associations. It would be good to reward and treat her for calm behaviour, or play with her whilst playing these sounds so she can build up positive associations.

Some people actually get life sized baby dolls for their dog to 'see' what a baby will look like beforehand. Also imitate what you'd be doing with the baby with this doll, such as walking around with it in a blanket, pretending to feed it etc. This is all so your dog can get used to what's to come. Reward your dog for calm behaviour. Whilst pretending to feed the doll you can also be stroking the dog with the other hand so she will learn the baby's presence can mean good things.

Start walking the dog around with a pushchair now so it's not a shock when there's a real live baby in there.

How good is Lucy's behaviour generally? it might be worth getting an obedience trainer now who can also help you prepare Lucy for the baby's arrival (make sure they use positive, reward based methods).

hth

Hi wombat,
I used to listen to a podcast on pregnancy - it's like an online panel discussion on all sorts of issues. Anyway I remember they did one on pets that had a strong 'dog' slant. Have done a search and found it - might be worth a listen - look at www.pregtastic.com, it's episode 50, may 7 2007, 'your newborn and your pets'.

Thanks v much to you all for your inputs.

deja - good suggestion. I was prompted to do this post seeing the one another mner had put up about getting fed up with people assuming cats are such a bad thing around babies. Lucy's very pretty indeed - I have just posted a couple of pics to my profile. Any thoughts on what she might be crossed with would be welcome!

Loads of v useful info there dizzy - we'll get started on that straight away(and hope there aren't too many strange looks from people when they see the empty pram! ) On the whole Lucy is fairly obedient, her biggest problem is that she gets over-excited when she sees people. I will make some enquiries into training costs.

Great research lady -thank you. Again, we'll get started on that this weekend.

Hi wombat!

When I had dd I had a very jealous and over protective cocker spaniel. If anyone came near me or the boys (apart from dh) he'd try to take a chunk!! He also had a bit of a thing about boxer dogs for some unknow reason. This wasn't a rescue dog, we'd got him at 16wks old, but the result of my abusive xh unfortunately.

I confess to not doing anything special other than introducing them when we came home from the hospital. He spent an hour on the sofa with me and dd with his head on my knee while I fed her. From then on she was the centre of his world!!

Dd crawled early and walked at 10mths (arrghh!), and you can imagine the temptation of those lovely long ears to an exploring baby! But he never so much as growled at her. She could do anything to him - crawl over him, grab his ears anything, not that we let her but sometimes she'd grab him.

Unfortunately he's no longer with us as he got very poorly and we had to have him pts nearly 3 years ago. So dd was 2.5 yrs old, and even now she talks about him EVERY day.

Hoping you're like me and very lucky!!

Hi

I too was worried how my 2 cocker spaniels would react to our newborn (1 of which can be very jealous). Our DS is now 10 days old & the dogs have been angelic around him. I sent a used babygro home for them to sniff and then when we came home i came in first & made a fuss of the dogs while OH brought baby in & put him up high until the dogs were calm and then slowly introduced them. A couple of sniffs & a lick later its all happy families.

I did however have a dog trainer come to the house while i was pregnant to help me feel organised & less stressed about it so long as your dog Lucy is obedient and you can tell her to go to her bed or off the sofa & she does it you should be fine. She should quickly learn when to leave you alone (like when your feeding).

We also had our buggy in the house set up & introduced a child toy box (with a couple of cheap poundland teddies & toys) seperate from the dog toy box around 36 weeks so they could get used to new things which didnt belong to them beforehand so it wasnt a massive overnight change for them.

The fact that you are conciousky making an effort now shows you are aware of potential issues & addressing them. I'm sure it will be fine.

Hello, my cairn terrier just turned one when we brought our twins home. He is slightly bonkers and spoilt rotten but has been nothing butbrilliant with the girls. They were in SCBU for 6 weeks so we let him sniff the babygros we brought home. We also left the car seats, carry cots etc out on the floor before they came home so he wasn't so interested in them and walked the buggy empty to get him used to it. Now he looks for them every morning, if they are in one room and I'm in another and they cough or anything he will come and get me.

The other thing we did and still do is make sure every visitor says hello of him and makes a fuss of him before the babies to try and prevent any jealousy issues.

Good luck :)