Hellobee

The 1,000 pound elephant in the room during my otherwise straightforward pregnancy actually weighed in at a mere 25 pounds: our dog, Ishmael.

When my husband was in law school, before we had any idea of what it meant to become parents, we impulsively bought a dog. My husband went to the pound and found the most pitiful creature available. The administrators warned us they were going to put him down the next morning. My husband called me, told me this sad tale, and that was that; he was ours.

As they say, no good deed goes unpunished!   Ishmael has been difficult since the day we brought him home, when he barked at everything –human, canine, feline, equine, etc.—who got near him, starting with the cat he saw as we drove into our driveway. Apparently, when a pound puppy who has nothing to lose suddenly gains a family to protect, he does.

Over the years we battled food and toy possessiveness, excitable marking, and stranger anxiety.  Every time we fixed one problem, Ishmael adopted a new one.  We tried doggie daycare, group training, and private classes. We socialized him with people, dogs, and cats. All of these things helped. Moving to the country where he had more room to roam helped even more.  By the time I got pregnant, he was vastly improved.

Still, I couldn’t help but wonder if it would be safe to bring a child into our home while we owned such a troublesome dog.

Our parents thought it would be best to give Ishmael away.  My husband felt that once the dog accepted Baby Scribble as part of the pack, he would become as devoted to the baby as he is to us.

I was torn. I worried that Ishmael would become jealous of Scribble, or that he might hurt the baby unintentionally.  I wondered if our dog, who is happiest in a calm environment, could handle the chaos of living with a toddler.

At the same time, I knew we had made a commitment to our dog on the day we rescued him from the pound. We could not give him up unless we found him an ideal home. And I was not convinced that we would be able to find a family willing to adopt a seven year old canine grump.  More than that, we loved him.  Before we had a baby to cuddle, Ishmael was the baby.

You would think that a family who had done so much to train their dog would be very proactive during pregnancy. Unfortunately, we weren’t.  Before I had my child I couldn’t imagine not snuggling with my dog on the couch. I thought it was cruel to leave him outside for large stretches of time or to put him on the other side of a baby gate away from his family.

We made some effort. The best thing we did to prepare the dog for baby’s arrival was to expose him to children, especially infants.  I learned that Ishmael is better with babies than toddlers.  I recall one time when a neighbor’s child repeatedly squeaked one of Ishmael’s toys near his face.  The poor dog peed out of pure fear! I realized in that moment that he was more scared of children than anything else.

Two couple friends of ours welcomed new babies to their families while we were pregnant. Both families came to stay with us overnight, which gave our dog the chance to see and smell a baby. Thankfully, since they made little noise, he was completely indifferent to both!

Having a baby completely changed our perspective about pets.  The day we came home from the hospital, we stopped letting Ishmael sleep on furniture. We also installed baby gates between the kitchen and the living area and bedroom so that we could move the dog between these two areas as needed.  Ishmael, once a couch potato, now spends the majority of his day outside.

These small changes helped our dog to blossom into a really great pet. A few weeks ago, we ran into one of my husband’s co-workers and his three children while we were out walking. I was worried that Ishmael would bark at the children, but he let them pet him without a noise! Before Scribble we indulged Ishmael as if he were a child. We thought that obedience classes, special collars, and other efforts would fix him, but keeping him off furniture helped him more than any of those things ever could. Our dog gets only a sliver of the attention he used to get. But because we dote less, he feels entitled to less.

When we brought Scribble home, Ishmael was curious. We arranged a controlled meeting and before we could stop him, our dog licked the baby! Eventually he lost interest. In recent days he has become more protective of his “little brother.” This is a problem we will have to address, but I am glad that this is his only bad behavior so far. By keeping the two separated and by limiting Ishmael’s access to furniture and areas of the house, we were able to establish baby as a superior member of our pack.

I take our relationship with Ishmael day by day.  I never leave the baby and the dog together unattended.  If I am not confident that I will be able to watch both of them at once, I let the dog outside. And I know that when baby becomes mobile and playful our troubles may really begin. I am heartened by the progress we’ve made so far!

I wish we hadn’t taken such a circuitous path to creating a baby-safe and pet-friendly home.  Some suggestions:

–    Expose your dog to babies and children before yours is born.

–    Establish house rules about furniture before baby is born.

–    Decide where your dog will sleep and if you decide to make a change, do this a few weeks before you bring home baby. Will he sleep in your room or elsewhere? Does he need to be contained while sleeping? Our dog has always slept in our room in his crate. We considered moving him to our laundry room, but decided it would stress him to be so far away from us. Now that the baby is here, we all sleep in the same room.  I think being close to us has helped our dog not to feel resentful of our new addition. But he also sleeps in a crate that we can lock, which restricts his access to the baby. Make your decision based on your dog’s temperament and your needs, as well as your house layout.

–    Crate training. We crate trained our dog when we first adopted him. I think it is really important for a dog to have a “comfort zone” where he can retreat when the rest of the house is pandemonium. (And it will be at times when baby arrives!)   Remember never to punish a dog by locking her in the crate; you want her to think of it as a safe, happy spot.

–    Buy some nice fluffy beds for your dog to use once he is banished from the living room furniture. It helps ease their transition and your guilt!

–    Consider fencing your yard so that you can leave your dog outside for large stretches of time. Make sure to leave them water and ensure that they have access to shade. (Try to avoid tying your dog out. Not only is it illegal in some states, but it can also make dogs aggressive.)

–    Consider a doggie door! We have one of the as-seen-on-TV mesh door screens on our back door. It allows the dog to let himself in and out on pretty days when I am too busy with the baby to tend to his needs.

–    Install baby gates around your home to establish “dog-friendly” and “dog-free” zones.

–    Walk your dog as often as possible! A tired dog is a happy dog.

Did introducing your baby to your dog go smoothly?