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hey!
i have 2 staffies, they go everywhere with us and they really are our babies. if we leave them at home they chew something up to punish us lol..
they would never ever hurt anyone or anything (despite what people think of staffies)
but i was just wondering how you dealt with bringing a baby home when your dogs were number 1!?
any tips?
thanks :)
our border collie is our fur baby too,I believe she would never hurt anyone, especially someone who is part of the 'pack'.
Our number one rule however is *Never leave Ella alone with the baby!*
Before bubba was born we made sure she knew which areas of the house were now out of bounds, in particular, DS's room!
We got her used to the pram so she was happy to go for a walk with it
We got her out of the habit of jumping up on the bed every morning to say good morning - I didn't want to risk her jumping up and accidently landing on bubba.
When bubba was born, DH brought one of his outfits home and let Ella sniff it. He actually left it in the cot so she knew that the smell would be in that room. Not that she is allowed in there, but so she would get used to the smell, and if she was going to wig out, then she could it without bubba being home!
The truth is, she's not interested in DS in the slightest. She'll come up, have a sniff, but that's it. He's waaaaay more interested in her!!
I love staffies, think they're gorgeous! I also love Border Collies, but the thing is, they're dogs, not people and they reason differently to us. They'll know they've dropped a level in the pack, and when that happens, at some time they might want to fight to get their standing back. There's always a chance, and it's not one I'm willing to take!
I was going to suggest similar to Krystls.
We have a labrador, and I took a cheap baby blanket to the hospital, our son was wrapped in this, and think may have even had a little chuck, anyway we brought it home and let our dog sniff the blanket I think it even stay on his inside mat.
We had no problems when we came home, he was very watchful over the baby if he started crying he would be up on his mat immediately watching us to make sure we helped him. Was very cute
Just had a HUGE search as there was a great thread about this a couple of years ago. Can't find it anywhere - might have been lost in the great server fiasco of 2010! Here's a really helpful article though:
Pets and Your Baby - Preparing Your Pet For A Baby
We got our dogs used to a way of life we knew we wanted well before baby came home. They were pretty used to being outdoors during the day, as we were at work, but at night they were encouraged to come inside and sit on their bed, as opposed to wherever they wanted (our concern being a baby on the floor with two young dogs running rampant). The dogs settled to it all really easily. When DD was born, we brought the dogs out to the car to meet her. They weren't really interested. Only now are they beginning to become friends with DD - but she's not that interested!
The other thing is we taught our dogs to walk with the pram before DD was born, but we found it a lot more difficult once she was here. I've only just been able to start walking them with the pram again. If another dog came along, it was just impossible - two dogs trying to leap away from me with a pram in the middle. It's very tricky. Good luck!
Like others have said, make sure you train them now to know what will be out of bounds, and NEVER make the mistake of believing that your dogs would *never* hurt anyone...at the end of the day they are still animals, not people, and you just never know!
Crystals has covered most of what I wanted to say. Our dog Charlie didn't give two hoots about ds when I brought him home. I did make sure I still gave him as much attention as i could, he is high maintenance, so spending time brushing him was his time.
Before I brought max home I played clips of babies crying on u tube so charl wouldn't bat an eyelid when he heard a cry.
I trust Charlie 100% with my kids, but I'd still never leave them alone.
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our dogs rarely come inside, if they do they are on their beds and dont move, other than that they go to work with dh, go for a 2km run everyday and get walked on the weekend.. they are excellent with our young nieces & nephews even when one rides them like a pony lol.. i know they will be fine but i still want to prepare them, its a bit different to having kids at the house for a couple of hours rather than 24/7.
they are such sooks i just dont want them to be sad! (does that sound lame??) :)
thanks santosha, that article was really helpful!
PacRakMG - oh my god i struggle to walk these two now there is no way i could handle a pram on top of that haha! strongest dogs ever!
thanks for all your advice everyone, certainly has given me a lot to think about :)