Expecting twins - what do I need to do to prepare the dog?!

[feesh]

Hi everyone,
So the good news is that I'm pregnant, the bad news is that it's double trouble! Yep twins :)

No we're really happy really, but I am a bit worried about our dog.

She's a 16-month old rescue and she is prone to fear-based aggression, so I am a little bit worried about her behaviour around future toddlers - I know it's a long way off, but with double trouble I would like to start preparing her now. She's not great with being touched and we do give her a lot of personal space because she's happier that way, although she is getting more affectionate as she gets older.

Also I am really worried that she's going to be a bit neglected from now on. Things have already changed a lot for her. I've had a pretty rotten first trimester, and instead of going to the beach every day, she just gets one walk a day now, for half an hour at 5am. We live in the Middle East and daytime temps are currently 42 degrees, with nighttime lows of 36 degrees, so that's all we can realistically manage.

I am also spending a lot of time upstairs now sleeping, and she is stuck downstairs on her own, which I feel bad about (she is not, and never will be, allowed upstairs!). Thankfully, she seems to have a lot of saluki in her and spends most of the time sleeping during the day and doesn't seem to be suffering too much from the neglect and lack of exercise so far!

I haven't spent any time training her this trimester as I've been feeling so utterly dreadful.

I think there are some things we need to work on though, before the babies arrive. 'Leave it' is one - she is not that good at it and I can imagine a LOT of the kids' toys disappearing regularly and being buried in the garden!

Are there any other things I need to think about? Her heelwork/loose leash walking is generally pretty good, but to be honest, I don't actually know how I am going to walk her with the babies anyway as there are very few pavements over here, just patches of dusty rubble, so pushing a pram AND walking the dog are simply not possible.

I am also worried that she is going to spend most of her life shut away (she has her own bedroom which also doubles up as our office - it is babygated off from the rest of the house and it has a dog-door set up so she can go outside into the side garden whenever she wants. However we rarely shut her in there except at night and if we're going out). How can she be left to wander around the house when their are babies' play mats and toys left out on the floor? The rest of the house is open plan.

I would really appreciate any tips on how we can make this work and what I can do now to prepare her. We will NOT get rid of her, not ever - even if we wanted to, there are hundreds of street dogs here all needing homes and it would be virtually impossible to find anyone to take her. So we need to make this work....somehow.

[Inthepotty]

Nothing remotely useful to add at all, sorry.

But big congratulations!

[bigjoeent]

I haven't either just congratulations, I have twins too and the cat who sleeps all day and night is pretty neglected. Mind you she gets fed before I do.

[UnexpectedItemInShaggingArea]

One tip we used - my DH brought home the baby clothes from the hospital and let the dog sniff them for a bit before he put them in the wash. I was in for 5 days so dog got used to the baby's smell.

Babies develop moving around skills fairly slowly so hopefully by the time they can chase after your dog she will be fairly used to them.

We were a bit precious about toys etc as well at first but left it a bit after DH started crawling into the dog basket to curl up to sleep with the dog. Ours learnt fairly quickly to leave the babie's toys alone (and he's not very bright).

Congratulations

[RedwingWinter]

Congratulations, Feesh! That's lovely news.

Since the house is open-plan, can you set up any extra dog-gates to close off other areas too? That way she might have more than just her room to be in.

Do you know how she is with babies and children anyway? If it's possible, you might want to try and socialize her more before your little ones arrive. It sounds like you are already working on anything else that might be an issue.

[silverangel]

Congratulations! We have ten month old twins, and our (incredibly spoilt) Cairn was ten months old when we brought them home. Things we did:

Assembled the pram and walked it empty to get him used to walking with it.
Left car seats, baby seats, carry cots downstairs for a couple of weeks before they came home so he didn't have a whole load of new stuff to get used to.
Brought dirty laundry home from hospital to let him sniff.
When babies came home we had a playpen and I would put their bouncy chairs in there if I was going out of the room. They were tiny 4lb babies though so we were paranoid about germs if he licked them.
When we came home and the visitors started we made sure they greeted the dog before the babies so his nose wasn't out of joint.
We tried to teach him leave and drop but to be honest he isn't great at it. He does steal their toys and I cut him a bit of slack because there's not much discernable difference between his and theirs!

10 months down the line he loves them, looks for them in the mornings and lies by them as if protecting them. They love him now too, laugh when he plays with his ball etc and try and feed him from their highchairs.

Good luck!

[silverangel]

Oh, and as for walking on playmats etc we were really careful in the beginning and just told him no. Now they suck the carpet and eat all sorts of other stuff we're not so worried about that!

[lil88]

Please never let your child get into your dog's bed - you are asking for trouble. The dog's bed is the dog's bed and a place for the dog to have some peace.

[UnexpectedItemInShaggingArea]

Just read my post again, apologies I probably confused people.

DD, not DH, crawling into dog bed.

And yes, lil88, you are entirely right, it's a terrible idea to allow this and your advice is spot on. We have an unusual dog who welcomed her in but even still we have made sure it hasn't happened again

[RubberBandit]

Probably not the best person to advise as DC1 is due in a little over a week but we have bought a large playpen which also can double as a room divider. Initially, we plan to use the play pen as a safe space to leave baby for those moments when we need to nip to the loo, answer the door etc without always having to usher the dogs out. Then, as baby gets a bit more mobile, we can segregate the room so that the dogs can still be with us but can't get at baby (and vice versa). Ours are allowed upstairs though so they can retreat to a quiet space if they want to.

Other than that, we're just going to try to keep the dogs' routine as normal as possible.

[boxyfoxy]

my dd was born with my dog at the side of the bed, dog kept coming to see how i was when i got, shall we say, 'a little more vocal' toward the end! Our dogs and our family are completely intertwined, however, the dogs know that humans are top of the pack, my dog inadvertently stepped on my baby girl, this only happened once because I gave the dog so much shit about it, no, i didn't beat her, but just verbally gave her hell. smart dogs generally don't need reminding. We never play with our dogs aggessively, and we don't give them dog toys that are similar to baby toys. They get bones, or chase a tennis ball. That and worming and parasite preventative are absolute necessities. I still would never leave a baby or small child unattended with any dog. Never. And if my dog showed any sign of aggression towards a child, that would be it, no matter how much it hurt, I would have the dog put down. but, having said all that, my dogs have blended seamlessly with children, just as long as there are clear boundaries.

[greyvix]

Dogs fit in with the family, and our dog loves children. Mine were all teenagers when she arrived, but she loves my little nieces and nephews. Congratulations!