Preparing Your Dog For The Arrival Of Your Child

Note from Con Slobodchikoff: This is a guest post by Mike Wombacher, who is a San Francisco Bay Area dog trainer with particular expertise in the area of dogs and children. His popular e-book, Good Dog Happy Baby, offers an integrated preparation program, including a section on dealing with problem behaviors, for dog owners expecting children. It comes bundled with three one-hour audio seminars to supplement the material. Mike's work has been featured in Fit Pregnancy magazine as well as in Dog World. He is currently the referred trainer of the McMoyler Method of childbirth preparation.

Congratulations! You're pregnant and your "pack" will soon be growing. If you're like most people, you're caught between anticipation and trepidation. You're thrilled about the arrival of your new child and you're concerned about doing everything right. If you own a dog, certainly some of your concern revolves around him. You're probably asking yourself: "How will my dog handle this? Will he be jealous? Will he be careful?" And most importantly: "Is there any chance that he might bite my child?"

If you're an expecting dog owner the very first thing that you should do is to identify the changes that need to be made in the life of your dog once the baby arrives and implement them NOW! You do not want your dog to associate any changes that need to be made with the arrival of your child thus setting up a competitive or jealous dynamic. Failing to implement relevant changes in the life of your dog prior to baby's arrival is the single most common mistake expecting dog owners make.

So take a careful look: is your dog sleeping in bed with you, pushy and demanding, barky, prone to steal things and get into mischief when you're not looking? Does he get tense when you try to take things away from him, touch him in certain ways, or get near his food?

These problems and many more are readily resolvable but the lynchpin of the successful resolution of any behavior problem is building the right relationship with your dog, a relationship in which your dog is in the deeply ingrained habit of taking direction from you. From that foundation almost anything is possible. Simple things like always giving your dog a command before you have an interaction with him, not letting him run out the door ahead of you, and being a little aloof with him can do a world of good in causing your dog to cheerfully accept your leadership role.



There are many things that you can do to help create not only safety but very positive associations for your dog with the presence of your child. For example, by creating zones in your house that your dog is by and large forbidden in without your specific permission and accompaniment you build effective buffer zones into your dog’s relationship with your child.


Here's an example. Start by making the future baby's room off limits to your dog. Once that’s handled, allow him to enter the room only with your permission and accompaniment. Once in the room always ask him for down-stays. Soon he'll get the idea that when he enters this room he's to do a down-stay in the corner (you could even put a bed for him there). In addition, teach your dog to tolerate alone time every day.

Now, once your baby arrives, allow your dog to come into the baby's room when you go in to change diapers or play or whatever and assume his down-stay. If he has been left alone for a few hours prior to that he will welcome the contact with and your child. In other words, the presence of your child means a positive social engagement for him. This is quite different than what usually happens which is that when mommy goes to play with or care for baby, doggie gets thrown out, thus potentially setting up a competitive or jealous dynamic. This is only one of many examples of specific exercises that can teach your dog to accept your child as a beloved pack member and ultimately companion.

Other things that you can do to ensure a seamless transition to siblinghood for your dog include: 

·         Teaching him the difference between doggie toys and child’s toys (start by getting doggie toys that are distinctly different from baby toys since often these two bear striking similarities).

 

·         Get a baby doll and wrap it in a scented baby blanket (ask a friend to use a new blanket on her baby for a few days and then wrap it around your doll) and teach your dog appropriate manners around your "faux baby," thus setting up a template of behavior for future interactions.

 

·         Hire a dog walker to take over exercise responsibilities during the period immediately after birth. This will take a lot of pressure off of you and produce a tired dog.

While the above does not comprise a comprehensive list, it should serve to provide a sense of direction and purpose. One thing to keep in mind in all of this is that there should never be any unsupervised interactions between your dog and your child ever, for any reason, period! Remember, there's too much at stake and it only takes two seconds for something to go terribly wrong.



All that having been said, keep in mind that your true challenge and the true test of the success of your efforts at integration will be seen once your child passes the eight-month threshold. What happens then? Your little one starts crawling and rapidly becoming highly mobile. This means that the frequency of unexpected and random encounters between your child and your dog will increase dramatically. That's where you’ll find out if all your hard work paid off and indeed, if you've worked hard it will.



In closing, please understand that what I've outlined above represents the tip of the iceberg of strategies designed to make the integration of your dog and your child as seamless, warm and rewarding as possible. While learning and implementing such strategies implies varying amounts of work, it promises a wholesome and fulfilling relationship between your child and your dog. The payoff of this relationship will last for years and thus makes any work you have to put in on the front end more than worth it. 

All that having been said, I wish you the best of luck with the exciting events that are unfolding in your life.

Comments

[Cathy Hughes]

Answer to L. Kinder re her marking dog.

Your dog marking around the toddler may be a sign that he is not that confident around the child. This may have magnified when the child started moving around on his own.

The first thing I would do is strengthen the dog's confidence around the baby when he is on the floor. Click and treat, teaching behaviors that conflict with marking behaviors whenever the child is on the floor. Try to discontinue any corrections that may have been made in the past. The baby should always mean an opportunity to earn rewards has arrived.

When you are not actively watching the dog and the child, the dog should either be attached to you with a lead or secured in an area where he is likely not to mark.

Reinforce previously trained housetraining behaviors. Go out with him and reward for voiding in the yard. Supervise or confine him in the house.

If these things don't work, get the help of a trainer experienced with working with dogs and small children, and who uses positive methods. Good luck and have fun!

[L KInder]

Our dog is a golden retriever mutt about 12 years old.... we have a 9 1/2 month old boy whom the dog really didn't pay much attention to and actually made a point to stay away from. Now that our baby is crawling, our dog ( a male who has had marking problems before especially when we moved to a new house but broke easily with no access to the dining rm where he was marking) is now suddenly marking on all the carpet areas where our baby is crawling. We can't obviously block off the living rm where we mostly do our living and we don't want to hinder our baby's exploration.....someone please help... Should we call the dog whisperer??LOL... My husband raised this dog and loves him more than life even though he didn't train him in any way.... please help!!!

[organic ergo baby carrier]

you should definitely train your pets otehrwise they may turn jealous of your baby.

[Suzanne Hetts, Ph.D., CAAB]

We've taught Preparing Your Dog For Your Baby Classes at several area in the Denver area for almost 10 years. We've used that experience to create a "Helping Fido Welcome Your Baby" DVD for expectant parents as well as a teaching package for pet professional interested in starting these classes in their own communities. While we agree with Mike on some points, we disagree sharply on others. First, we think most couples just won't successfully teach their dog to stay out of the babies room. Rather than taking on this difficult task, we recommend people allow their dogs to satisfy their curiousity about all the "baby things" - under supervision. Not only does this tend to prevent urine-marking from males but once these things become familiar the dogs tend to lose interest. While it's always nice to have a dog who "does what he's told", obedience does little to help a dog overcome its fear of a toddler which is the source of most problems.
And to be honest we are really really tired of the outdated and inaccurate human family as a "pack" model.
The thing we do agree on is that preparation is crucial - couples have almost 9 months to prepare for the arrival of their child, and they should spend part of that time preparing their dog as well.