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The doghouse

If you're worried about your pet's health, please speak to a vet or qualified professional.

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Original poster

8 week old puppy coming home at 6 1/2 months pregnant...

44 replies

Rosenip · 08/08/2013 14:40

Advice please, my DH and I have thought long and hard about this, spent months researching what we should do and are pretty sure we still want to go ahead... despite dissapproval from both sets of parents etc (but the dog will eat the baby...)

We are getting a rhodesian ridgeback and the timing is due to wanting puppies from a particular breader and to have the puppy when I am off work full time so I am aruond to keep it company. The way I see it is that we can make a good start on house-breaking before our baby arrives, as we will have 2 months ish and then I'm going to be up all night with baby anyway, puppy can just come along for the ride!

I am thinking that a puppy pen would be a good way to go when baby and dog and I are in the living room etc

What precautions should we take that I may not have thought about?

OP posts:

MoaningMingeWhingesAgain · 08/08/2013 14:41

Is this your first baby, putting the dog aside for a moment?

TheRealFellatio · 08/08/2013 14:46

Honestly, although you are doing it for the right reasons, your puppy will be a teenager when you are struggling with a young baby. Once you've got the house training out of the way it will go through a really gobby, pushy stage around six months old which will challenge you to the point of tears and exhaustion. do you really need that at that point in your life?

If there is even the slightest chance that you will end up rehoming it then it's kinder to walk away and let it go to its forever home now. You have plenty more time to take on a dog, and personally I found it harder than having a baby!

TheRealFellatio · 08/08/2013 14:47

And the thought of doing the two simultaneously gives me the horrors.

Wheresmycaffeinedrip · 08/08/2013 14:55

Puppy proofing and baby proofing are pretty similar. They chew everything. Everything. They can't go out til they have their shots so your puppy will be in house full time weeping and poking everywhere. I live dogs but honestly, heavily pregnant is not a good time. Not only will it be a struggle bending down cleaning up the poo/wee/vomit but having you home with the puppy for a long period is a bad idea. They need to get used to you being out the house or when you return to work or start going out for the day with the baby you will come home to carnage. It cannot be achieved in two months before baby arrives. And whereas pens are a great help, the puppy really can't spend hours in them while you deal with the baby. I would seriously think about waiting til your baby is older or going for an older dog.

Puppies also cry like babies do. You won't get a wink of sleep even if baby is quiet.

Original poster

Rosenip · 08/08/2013 14:57

It is our first baby, but I've spent some time volunteering at Battersea and we were waiting until we got our house with a garden rather than having a dog in a flat. I'd like to think we would be responsible dog owners.

DH is obviously keen to help with both and tends to work much shorter hours in the winter when baby and puppy will be around as he's a pilot.

We are trying our best to consider it all so that whatever choice we make would never result in the re-homing of the puppy due to us being naive.

OP posts:

Wheresmycaffeinedrip · 08/08/2013 14:57

But if you go ahead, hide the cabeks so they do t get chewed, lock cupboards, check garden for toxic plants and escape routes, stair gates to confine dog to down stairs :one room.

Wheresmycaffeinedrip · 08/08/2013 14:58

Cables

MoaningMingeWhingesAgain · 08/08/2013 15:02

Well, exactly, Fellatio.

I have had newborns, twice.

We had a small mature terrier well before the first baby arrived, and a puppy when my youngest was 2.5yo.

Having a newborn or a puppy is hard . Having both at the same time is, IMHO, in-fucking-sane.

The idea of getting up in the morning after being woken every 90 mins by a baby, then having to train and exercise a large bouncy puppy, having the baby toys/playmat chewed up, clearing up puppyshit and constant baby shit at the same time, walking a bouncy hound in the winter on icy streets with a pushchair. Squeezing in an emergency trip to the vets with a baby to take with you - not fun.

I would bet my left bollock that you are massively broody and loved up and for a puppy right now. You don't need a puppy - you are having a baby very soon.

I think worrying that the dog will eat the baby is not the issue at all

MultumInParvo · 08/08/2013 15:03

Gosh op. Good luck with that.

cogitosum · 08/08/2013 15:07

I've just had my first baby (12 days old) and love dogs (have always had them growing up).

IMO nothing prepares you for the exhaustion of a new baby. The thought of having a puppy right now fills me with abject horror! You don't know if you'll have a bad sleeper (I do he doesn't sleep for more than half hour at a time) and he feeds almost 24/7.

I really wouldn't but obviously it's your choice.

tabulahrasa · 08/08/2013 15:08

My puppy wasn't reliably housetrained by four months old, and even when it did click a short while later, if he needed out, he needed out and there's no way he could have waited for me to finish with a baby to let him out without having an accident.

He also tried to chase or bite everything that moved, including children up until about 7 months or so where it dropped off to just sometimes doing it.

At 4 months they still have their baby teeth, they're needle sharp, hurt and cut skin very easily. They're still chewing everything they can get to, you're still working on the things that make walks easier like lead walking and recall.

IMO such a young puppy and a new baby is a complete recipe for disaster - I just don't see how on earth you can give them both what they need, I don't even mean and keep your sanity, I just don't see how it is possible.

I had dogs while my DC were babies, adult trained dogs and that is perfectly do-able although of course a bit more work than just a baby...but a puppy?

ChickensHaveNoEyebrows · 08/08/2013 15:08

I'm with MoaningMinge. I really, really wouldn't advise you to get a puppy right now. Nothing can prepare you for the amount of time a newborn takes up, and just how much you will love them. I honestly think you'll end up regretting the bitey, chewy, boisterous puppy if you go ahead. I got our first dog when my DC were 10 and 8, and it was still hard through the puppy stage. No way would I have a pup and a baby together. Sorry.

thegriffon · 08/08/2013 15:09

My worst nightmare pup going through the biting crocodile stage - lasted about 4 months - and a new baby.
Memories of reading that you should turn your back on pup and walk away and trying to work out how to do that with pup's jaws firmly clamped to my leg.
Toilet training was the easy bit.

Wheresmycaffeinedrip · 08/08/2013 15:10

www.thekennelclub.org.uk/item/4067

Does this help with puppy proofing garden.?

TheRealFellatio · 08/08/2013 15:11

Also puppies really do need a lot of love and attention just like a human baby, and if it's had that from you for just a couple of months and then that is withdrawn while you are understandably completely absorbed in your baby (and beleive me, whatever you say and however well intentioned you are, this will happen) the puppy is far more likely to become agrgressive or destructive and to start displaying attention seeking behaviour. It really is not a risk I would take. you might manage to juggle all the balls, but by God you'll drive yourself into the ground doing it.

Floralnomad · 08/08/2013 15:12

I think its perfectly doable ,but that's because I found babies incredibly easy and when I had mine I had horses to fit in and IME my horses were much difficult than any puppy . That said I'm staggered that someone who has volunteered at Battersea could then contemplate buying a puppy from a breeder when there are so many dogs in rescue .

Original poster

Rosenip · 08/08/2013 15:13

Moaning - you've sealed the deal for me. You've made me laugh at the craziness of myself! The idea of the toys/playmat chewed up and the multiple sources of poo, cold wind and explination of broodiness...

Thanks.

shame as we've talked about our theoretical dog we would get for so many years and thought this would be it!

OP posts:

Original poster

Rosenip · 08/08/2013 15:16

Flora - rescue dogs are not allowed to go to pregnant ladies... (there is probably a good reason for this ).

OP posts:

Floralnomad · 08/08/2013 15:17

Exactly !

binger · 08/08/2013 15:23

I am a massive dog lover but I really, really must advise against this. The first 6 months of owning a puppy are ridiculously difficult, the next 6 months are very hard with really fine tuning training etc. add a brand new baby in the mix and it's a recipe for disaster.

Dealing with a new born is relentless, you will be exhausted and regularly bad tempered. I really think this is a crazy idea.

ClartyCarol · 08/08/2013 15:27

But then I wouldn't have thought reputable breeders would want their puppies to go to pregnant women either!

Glad you have seen the light OP. When your first baby is born you will find him/her the most fascinating thing ever and will be absorbed in drinking in their little face for hours at a time (you don't often get the luxury of time to do this with a subsequent baby!). Imagine doing that with a Rhodesian Ridgeback puppy tearing round the living room having a mad half hour, jumping on the sofas and off again in a mad canine version of parkour?!

Original poster

Rosenip · 08/08/2013 15:30

Thanks Clarty - you have all been excellent in helping my head to win this internal argument I was having with myself.

I've advised DH to come and have a look at the thread too - I just told him the news we wouldn't be getting one, he was :(.

OP posts:

Wheresmycaffeinedrip · 08/08/2013 15:34

It's not never rose it's just not now. Waiting a couple of years will be sooooo worth it. Imagine how great all those walks to Pre school will be for socialising your puppy and the how quickly he will become used to children then. And how your baby will have a best friend he won't ever forget you bringing home.

It will fly by and you will soon have a dog and a child who are inseparable and you will be glad you waited x

ChickensHaveNoEyebrows · 08/08/2013 15:35

There will be a right time in the future, and the right dog :)

Faverolles · 08/08/2013 15:35

When I had any of my newborns, I massively resented my adult dogs for needing attention when I had been up all night, was constantly elbow deep in pooy nappies, was pacing with a screaming baby, etc. etc.
Our dogs were pretty much ignored for the first 2 or three months with a newborn. They were fed, they were walked, but that was it, that was all we were capable of.

Had I had a puppy to cope with, I would not have coped at all with the attention they need, the consistent training they need. I bet there are statistics about untrained, unsocialised young dogs being rehomed from families with very young children.

I think you've made the right decision!

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