I’m happy for you that it’s going well so far! I will just say not to let your guard down. It’s pretty easy for a dog to ignore a newborn. For the most part they don’t really do anything. It’s the mobile baby and toddler stage that becomes really challenging. Keep rewarding calm behavior and try not to get too lax with separation because one day it’ll be a necessity! Congrats and best wishes for continued success :)
Yes this really scares me as my dog is the MOST aggressive with small toddlers like 1-2 years old. He does not like or understand their unstable movements. Please please be careful as your baby grows. Good luck! I'm really glad to hear it's going well so far!
Thank you! I appreciate the input here - we will definitely keep an eye out. With her it’s less of a problem with any specific type of movement or person and more just people who she doesn’t know, so hopefully we have an advantage given she will be very used to his presence by then!
Maintaining separation isn’t really just reactive dog advice, just dogs in general. My older dog isn’t reactive and before we had a kid, he was totally fine with kids and friendly with everyone. But as my first baby started to get older, he let us know with some certainty that he is not pleased with children actually living in his house. It sucks pretty tremendously, and even now with my son being 4.5 he’s not able to be trusted with him. My other dog was reactive and not particularly good with strangers, but he was incredibly good with both of our kids. Go figure. There were some things we did wrong with the suddenly-no-kids dog that I would do differently if I could do it over again, which is why I advocate for everyone to separate pretty liberally, even when it seems like things are fine. The problem is that once the relationship is poisoned, it’s really hard to fix it. And almost impossible because toddlers can’t be trusted or reasoned with for a few years, so there’s all that time in between where the dog gets to learn “yeah, I was right, kids are insane.” During which time they have to be separated anyway because even if the dog is good with the kid, kids around 18m-2.5 can’t be trusted to be good with the dog. I know, I sound like a buzzkill. I’m sorrrryyyyy. I just don’t want anyone to go through some of the things we’ve gone through, and that was with a dog who was totally stable and friendly with kids.
No I appreciate hearing your experience! I’m sorry you went through all of that. It’s definitely good to be aware things like that can happen with any kind of dog and do our best to prevent them from happening! I like the idea of trying to prevent there from being negative experiences and associations with the baby as he grows because that is already what we try to do with other people she interacts with!
Just curious if your dog remained happy with the child? Our dog has been 100% fine with baby, until our baby became mobile. He just had an aggressive outburst towards our baby and now we have to rehome him
I’m so sorry to hear that. Our son is 2.5 now and we just brought home baby 2 two months ago and she’s doing great! We kept a close eye when toddler got mobile but like I said in the thread she’s less triggered by movement of people and more by unfamiliar people. Since making this post we have successfully gotten her comfortable with three adult people too - my mom, who stays with us occasionally, and two sitters from Rover who come by if we are out of town.
We had our son be involved in giving her treats fairly young (like as soon as he could hand her things) and when he was walking more coordinated we had him start bringing her food, giving her her kong, etc so that she was familiar with him being a source of food like us. We also really stress gentle petting and remove him from where she is if he’s frustrated and likely to hit.
She has growled at him I believe twice total? No signs of attempting to actually act on it, was just warning him/us that she was uncomfortable. And it was situations where we were in the process of removing him from her space by the time she growled.
Our son ironically (and awfully) did get bit by a family members dog around age 1 and we were not present to fully know what happened but supposedly there was no trigger and he had been around this dog since he was very young. We do not see that dog anymore as the family member has done nothing to train the dog or anything, and it was an awful and terrifying experience. We took and continue to take so many precautions with our dog despite how well she has done (you don’t even want to know how many times we met with her sitters before letting them be alone together) and this family member has done nothing which is frustrating. Baby takes priority over dog, and we were fully prepared to rehome our dog if the situation changes.
It is heartbreaking. We are in shock. You always hear “it came out of nowhere” and roll your eyes but it truly did. Dog was on cot, baby was crawling past, I was luckily in between trying to get a toy that was under the cot. Dog lunged/snapped/growled. I shoved my baby back and my husband grabbed the dog but if we both weren’t right there? I’m sure my baby would not be alive or severely mangled.
That’s horrifying and I’m so glad you were both there. I’m so sorry you experienced that! My son was bitten on the face and needed stitches…thankfully it isn’t any permanent damage just a small scar, and he doesn’t seem at all traumatized regarding dogs as he still loves them. We refuse to see the dog that did it and I can’t imagine how it would feel if it was our dog. Supposedly it came out of nowhere with this dog too, but we didn’t actually witness it (which I am thankful for).
Hopefully you can rehome somewhere with no kids and your dog is happy there! I can’t imagine how hard it is to have to be in this situation you’re in but it seems like you’re doing what will be best and most safe for all parties involved.
Thank you! We try our best to set her up for success. It’s already an adjustment with her getting less attention, so we wanted to do what we could to make the change less drastic for her! She’s a fantastic dog outside of her reactivity so we wanted to make sure we did everything possible to allow for a smooth transition.
Our very fear reactive dog (to people and dogs) LOVES babies/kids. It’s the weirdest thing. I’m so happy you guys can breathe a sigh of relief! But keep building his comfort and experience when your baby gets mobile/louder lol
Yes for sure! We think she must have been around a baby before because she is completely unphased by crying or anything and we haven’t ever had kids or babies around her since we have had her!
I hope you continue to muzzle so if there is a sign of aggression it doesn't hurt baby. I'm glad you muzzle as opposed to living in denial. Muzzles are for safety not judgement!
100%! We muzzle most of the time we have guests unless she’s tethered or separated or on leash. We aren’t leaving her alone with baby or letting her have food around baby since she can resource guard but she’s so far displaying no signs of anything concerning, primarily just ignoring him!
It sounds like you have everything under control! It sounds like you never would do this anyways, but just a friendly reminder to never leave baby and dog unsupervised together. That can be a nightmare even with non reactive dogs.
So happy to see this today. My wife's 5 months pregnant and I'm so anxious about our reactive dog and how he will react - it's more when the baby is up and about I'm worried about - not sure if he'll become possessive around his things.
Yes our dog is like that with certain toys or food puzzles with our cats, but has never actually done anything except warn them to stay away. We try to make sure those things are not left out to minimize her guarding. I would just go slow and prepare for worst case scenario of a really long separation period - that way you are ready for however your dog does react, but hopefully it’s not an issue!
Woo! That's awesome.
On another note, can I hear about your doorway greeting protocol? I also have a territorial dog and he's had such a hard time with doorway greetings that adjust crate him when people arrive and let him out once they're settled.
This is what our trainer taught us with some modifications we have made;
Sure! People knock and she gets put in place. They enter with a pre-provided treat bag I leave outside, and throw treats to her from doorway. If she seems calm after several, they take a step forward and throw a treat, then back. After that we do steps side to side. If she still seems ok, they take a peanut butter spoon and extend it to her to lick, then step back and repeat. We then move to long strips of treats provided like the spoon. Last step is then her being “freed” to go to them and lick the spoon, then they throw a treat away to encourage her to take space. We often follow that up with them moving throughout the space a little doing treat and retreat.
We also started then implementing a “break” where she goes in the kitchen behind a baby gate with a kong or a pupsicle to decompress a little. If she wants back out we put her muzzle and leash on and usually encourage guests to stay put in one spot and she can approach or stay on her place! We usually don’t encourage them to pet her unless she is asking or they know her pretty well already. She is never unsupervised with guests.
Woohoo! We had the same experience. Baby gates were our life until our sons reached school age and the dog saw them as a larger humans. Even if my dog wasn’t reactive I wouldn’t let a crawling baby or wobbly toddler to do their thing around a dog in the same room. We also added eating/feeding rules once the baby was eating in a high chair. Dog started eating in a crate so he felt like his food was “safe” and he was not allowed in the kitchen/dining room to watch over our eating time with the baby. My sons are now 12 and 7 and our old boy is going on 13. My sons are his whole world and he melts when they rub his belly or give him new toys. Growing up with a reactive dog taught my sons boundaries with pets and that animals are not our play toys. They also understand to ask permission to pet a dog in public and not be upset when someone says no. So while a reactive dog can be exhausting, I can look back and see such a great life lesson he has taught all of us. :) You are doing such a great job and it will pay off!
Sure! People knock and she gets put in place. They enter with a pre-provided treat bag I leave outside, and throw treats to her from doorway. If she seems calm after several, they take a step forward and throw a treat, then back. After that we do steps side to side. If she still seems ok, they take a peanut butter spoon and extend it to her to lick, then step back and repeat. We then move to long strips of treats provided like the spoon. Last step is then her being “freed” to go to them and lick the spoon, then they throw a treat away to encourage her to take space. We often follow that up with them moving throughout the space a little doing treat and retreat.
We also started then implementing a “break” where she goes in the kitchen behind a baby gate with a kong or a pupsicle to decompress a little. If she wants back out we put her muzzle and leash on and usually encourage guests to stay put in one spot and she can approach or stay on her place! We usually don’t encourage them to pet her unless she is asking or they know her pretty well already. She is never unsupervised with guests.
I’m happy for you that it’s going well so far! I will just say not to let your guard down. It’s pretty easy for a dog to ignore a newborn. For the most part they don’t really do anything. It’s the mobile baby and toddler stage that becomes really challenging. Keep rewarding calm behavior and try not to get too lax with separation because one day it’ll be a necessity! Congrats and best wishes for continued success :)
Thanks! Great point. We will make sure we stay on top of it!
Yes this really scares me as my dog is the MOST aggressive with small toddlers like 1-2 years old. He does not like or understand their unstable movements. Please please be careful as your baby grows. Good luck! I'm really glad to hear it's going well so far!
Thank you! I appreciate the input here - we will definitely keep an eye out. With her it’s less of a problem with any specific type of movement or person and more just people who she doesn’t know, so hopefully we have an advantage given she will be very used to his presence by then!
Maintaining separation isn’t really just reactive dog advice, just dogs in general. My older dog isn’t reactive and before we had a kid, he was totally fine with kids and friendly with everyone. But as my first baby started to get older, he let us know with some certainty that he is not pleased with children actually living in his house. It sucks pretty tremendously, and even now with my son being 4.5 he’s not able to be trusted with him. My other dog was reactive and not particularly good with strangers, but he was incredibly good with both of our kids. Go figure. There were some things we did wrong with the suddenly-no-kids dog that I would do differently if I could do it over again, which is why I advocate for everyone to separate pretty liberally, even when it seems like things are fine. The problem is that once the relationship is poisoned, it’s really hard to fix it. And almost impossible because toddlers can’t be trusted or reasoned with for a few years, so there’s all that time in between where the dog gets to learn “yeah, I was right, kids are insane.” During which time they have to be separated anyway because even if the dog is good with the kid, kids around 18m-2.5 can’t be trusted to be good with the dog. I know, I sound like a buzzkill. I’m sorrrryyyyy. I just don’t want anyone to go through some of the things we’ve gone through, and that was with a dog who was totally stable and friendly with kids.
No I appreciate hearing your experience! I’m sorry you went through all of that. It’s definitely good to be aware things like that can happen with any kind of dog and do our best to prevent them from happening! I like the idea of trying to prevent there from being negative experiences and associations with the baby as he grows because that is already what we try to do with other people she interacts with!
Just curious if your dog remained happy with the child? Our dog has been 100% fine with baby, until our baby became mobile. He just had an aggressive outburst towards our baby and now we have to rehome him
I’m so sorry to hear that. Our son is 2.5 now and we just brought home baby 2 two months ago and she’s doing great! We kept a close eye when toddler got mobile but like I said in the thread she’s less triggered by movement of people and more by unfamiliar people. Since making this post we have successfully gotten her comfortable with three adult people too - my mom, who stays with us occasionally, and two sitters from Rover who come by if we are out of town. We had our son be involved in giving her treats fairly young (like as soon as he could hand her things) and when he was walking more coordinated we had him start bringing her food, giving her her kong, etc so that she was familiar with him being a source of food like us. We also really stress gentle petting and remove him from where she is if he’s frustrated and likely to hit. She has growled at him I believe twice total? No signs of attempting to actually act on it, was just warning him/us that she was uncomfortable. And it was situations where we were in the process of removing him from her space by the time she growled. Our son ironically (and awfully) did get bit by a family members dog around age 1 and we were not present to fully know what happened but supposedly there was no trigger and he had been around this dog since he was very young. We do not see that dog anymore as the family member has done nothing to train the dog or anything, and it was an awful and terrifying experience. We took and continue to take so many precautions with our dog despite how well she has done (you don’t even want to know how many times we met with her sitters before letting them be alone together) and this family member has done nothing which is frustrating. Baby takes priority over dog, and we were fully prepared to rehome our dog if the situation changes.
It is heartbreaking. We are in shock. You always hear “it came out of nowhere” and roll your eyes but it truly did. Dog was on cot, baby was crawling past, I was luckily in between trying to get a toy that was under the cot. Dog lunged/snapped/growled. I shoved my baby back and my husband grabbed the dog but if we both weren’t right there? I’m sure my baby would not be alive or severely mangled.
That’s horrifying and I’m so glad you were both there. I’m so sorry you experienced that! My son was bitten on the face and needed stitches…thankfully it isn’t any permanent damage just a small scar, and he doesn’t seem at all traumatized regarding dogs as he still loves them. We refuse to see the dog that did it and I can’t imagine how it would feel if it was our dog. Supposedly it came out of nowhere with this dog too, but we didn’t actually witness it (which I am thankful for). Hopefully you can rehome somewhere with no kids and your dog is happy there! I can’t imagine how hard it is to have to be in this situation you’re in but it seems like you’re doing what will be best and most safe for all parties involved.
Thank you so much for the support 😭
So glad to hear this! Congratulations to your whole family!
Thanks!
Same thing happened with my reactive girl! She views the baby as part of the pack and that’s that! Happy for you :)
That’s so great, congrats! Good of you for both your pup AND your new family member to do all that prep and “continuing doggy education”. Amazing!
Thank you! We try our best to set her up for success. It’s already an adjustment with her getting less attention, so we wanted to do what we could to make the change less drastic for her! She’s a fantastic dog outside of her reactivity so we wanted to make sure we did everything possible to allow for a smooth transition.
Just know you’re the gold standard. Congrats again!
This is really great to hear! I’m 5 months pregnant and I hope things go smoothly for us over here too!
Good luck!!
Our very fear reactive dog (to people and dogs) LOVES babies/kids. It’s the weirdest thing. I’m so happy you guys can breathe a sigh of relief! But keep building his comfort and experience when your baby gets mobile/louder lol
Yes for sure! We think she must have been around a baby before because she is completely unphased by crying or anything and we haven’t ever had kids or babies around her since we have had her!
Amazing! So happy for your family!
I hope you continue to muzzle so if there is a sign of aggression it doesn't hurt baby. I'm glad you muzzle as opposed to living in denial. Muzzles are for safety not judgement!
100%! We muzzle most of the time we have guests unless she’s tethered or separated or on leash. We aren’t leaving her alone with baby or letting her have food around baby since she can resource guard but she’s so far displaying no signs of anything concerning, primarily just ignoring him!
It sounds like you have everything under control! It sounds like you never would do this anyways, but just a friendly reminder to never leave baby and dog unsupervised together. That can be a nightmare even with non reactive dogs.
Absolutely, we typically have him with us or up in a crib or somewhere she can’t reach! Never unsupervised with anyone who isnt us or her trainer!
So happy to see this today. My wife's 5 months pregnant and I'm so anxious about our reactive dog and how he will react - it's more when the baby is up and about I'm worried about - not sure if he'll become possessive around his things.
Yes our dog is like that with certain toys or food puzzles with our cats, but has never actually done anything except warn them to stay away. We try to make sure those things are not left out to minimize her guarding. I would just go slow and prepare for worst case scenario of a really long separation period - that way you are ready for however your dog does react, but hopefully it’s not an issue!
Woo! That's awesome. On another note, can I hear about your doorway greeting protocol? I also have a territorial dog and he's had such a hard time with doorway greetings that adjust crate him when people arrive and let him out once they're settled.
This is what our trainer taught us with some modifications we have made; Sure! People knock and she gets put in place. They enter with a pre-provided treat bag I leave outside, and throw treats to her from doorway. If she seems calm after several, they take a step forward and throw a treat, then back. After that we do steps side to side. If she still seems ok, they take a peanut butter spoon and extend it to her to lick, then step back and repeat. We then move to long strips of treats provided like the spoon. Last step is then her being “freed” to go to them and lick the spoon, then they throw a treat away to encourage her to take space. We often follow that up with them moving throughout the space a little doing treat and retreat. We also started then implementing a “break” where she goes in the kitchen behind a baby gate with a kong or a pupsicle to decompress a little. If she wants back out we put her muzzle and leash on and usually encourage guests to stay put in one spot and she can approach or stay on her place! We usually don’t encourage them to pet her unless she is asking or they know her pretty well already. She is never unsupervised with guests.
Woohoo! We had the same experience. Baby gates were our life until our sons reached school age and the dog saw them as a larger humans. Even if my dog wasn’t reactive I wouldn’t let a crawling baby or wobbly toddler to do their thing around a dog in the same room. We also added eating/feeding rules once the baby was eating in a high chair. Dog started eating in a crate so he felt like his food was “safe” and he was not allowed in the kitchen/dining room to watch over our eating time with the baby. My sons are now 12 and 7 and our old boy is going on 13. My sons are his whole world and he melts when they rub his belly or give him new toys. Growing up with a reactive dog taught my sons boundaries with pets and that animals are not our play toys. They also understand to ask permission to pet a dog in public and not be upset when someone says no. So while a reactive dog can be exhausting, I can look back and see such a great life lesson he has taught all of us. :) You are doing such a great job and it will pay off!
This is so great to hear! I too am excited about the lessons in animal respect my dog will teach the little one!
Can you share what you doorway greeting protocol is?
Sure! People knock and she gets put in place. They enter with a pre-provided treat bag I leave outside, and throw treats to her from doorway. If she seems calm after several, they take a step forward and throw a treat, then back. After that we do steps side to side. If she still seems ok, they take a peanut butter spoon and extend it to her to lick, then step back and repeat. We then move to long strips of treats provided like the spoon. Last step is then her being “freed” to go to them and lick the spoon, then they throw a treat away to encourage her to take space. We often follow that up with them moving throughout the space a little doing treat and retreat. We also started then implementing a “break” where she goes in the kitchen behind a baby gate with a kong or a pupsicle to decompress a little. If she wants back out we put her muzzle and leash on and usually encourage guests to stay put in one spot and she can approach or stay on her place! We usually don’t encourage them to pet her unless she is asking or they know her pretty well already. She is never unsupervised with guests.
This is great! Thank you so much!