Dog licking baby

[DriftGames]

My Jack Russel cross is amazing with my 10 month old. They're best friends. However he will not stop licking her face & head when she's sat playing and she obviously dislikes it as she bats him away.

I obviously want to nip this in the bud now as I don't want her batting him away in case he gets annoyed by it and snaps at her - which he's never shown signs of doing but you can't be too careful, and surely there's a limit as to how much dog saliva can be good for a baby's face!

I've told him no sternly, sent him to his bed, tried gentler methods, distracted him etc but whilst these work at the time, he'll go back 5 minutes later and do it again!

Any suggestions??

Have you taught him a "leave it" command?

This is best done by teaching with food (away from baby!) but once you've taught the command you can apply it to baby's face too.

With regards to going back five minutes later, you're just going to have to repeat it consistently, and do it the second the dog starts trying to lick the baby. It will take a while to sink in that it's no longer allowed, but you'll get there!

Put him on his lead so he can't do it at all.

Both PILs previous and current JRT crosses did/do this, it’s almost as if they are grooming. Their old dog did it to their retriever cross, licked right round his snout, eyes and ears, but the other dog didn’t mind at all. However their current dog tries to do this to our ddog (who very definitely does mind 😂). If she got the chance, she would do it to the dc as well but they are bigger and don’t like it so push her off. So the good news is your ddog really likes the baby.

However, I just wouldn’t let the dog get near to be honest at that age unless you are sitting right by them. Not worth the risk to either baby or dog. But if you do sit with them, you could try a licki mat while baby is playing so the dog is getting the same licking sensation?

@AvocadosBeforeMortgages yes he does know leave it! I have no idea why that never occurred to me - maybe because I don't call DD it so it didn't connect? 

@vanillandhoney are you suggesting he's on a lead and I hold him any time my DD is playing on the floor? That would mean almost continuously from 6am - 8pm on my days off work if we don't go out.

@Stresseddogmum oh that's lovely! He does absolutely adore her but there are limits haha.

are you suggesting he's on a lead and I hold him any time my DD is playing on the floor? That would mean almost continuously from 6am - 8pm on my days off work if we don't go out.

Until he learns that he's not to lick her, then absolutely yes. You don't have to hold the lead, you could just tether him somewhere just out of reach of baby, or you could crate him/use a baby gate to give you some dog-free time with DD. What if when she bats him away, she hurts him by accident? You wouldn't forgive yourself if he snapped and bit her in retaliation.

I know it's annoying but unfortunately you've allowed this behaviour so he's not going to know it's not acceptable. It's part of having dogs and small children - you need to manage the environment so that one doesn't annoy or upset the other. It'll be harder to deal with when DD is crawling and more mobile so best to nip it in the bud now.

I was going to say the leave it command too or teach stop it to mean the same thing . My jrt is very licky and I do use leave it. I'm sure it won't hurt your baby but as you say there are other concerns here

You could also teach the dog to settle on command.

I have just obliged an antsy dog to stop whining at the door and pacing around the kitchen (she thinks there's a fire in the front room: there isn't, and she's muddy) and to lie down on her bed. She's gone to sleep.