Introducing our baby to our dogs
6+ years into our lives together, after nearly 100 foster siblings, 2 permanent siblings, a hospice foster sibling who just won’t quit, 3 new homes, multiple trips to new places, and lots of other new things, we introduced crazy Penny to the biggest change of her life—a human baby brother.
Luckily Penny has never been aggressive with people, and she had met a few babies before, so we were hopeful this would be the same. She is, however, bubbling over with anxiety on a good day. So we wanted to prepare as much as we could ahead of time, and do whatever we could to ease her anxiety but also obviously to keep everyone safe. We predicted that her biggest challenge would be sharing our attention, and not trying to head butt the baby out of our arms for her turn in our laps.
For Loosey, we weren’t as concerned but knew we still had to go slow, because she DOES get very hype about little fosters. She also tends to follow Penny’s lead, even if she’s not totally sure why. For that reason, we knew for Loo the best thing would be to follow our foster introduction protocol, and just wait her out for calm behavior, as we would already be doing for Pen.
Scully possibly still hasn’t noticed the baby and it’s been almost 7 weeks so…this blog post isn’t really about him. Though he does demand bark and wake up the baby daily, so let me know if anyone reading wants a 15 year old nearly deaf rotten mouthed loud ass cavalier.
Before we start, just a note that this is what worked for us. We know our dogs really well, and we’re used to bringing home new exciting creatures and we have a set protocol that everyone is used to. If you’re having problems with your dog like guarding space or resources like food, with excessive jumping or nipping, demand barking, or anything else, please consult an actual trainer for a personalized action plan. You can also check out the account @dog_meets_baby for some good tips.)
Special circumstances:
When we found out I was pregnant we started talking about changes we’d have to make for the dogs and how they’d react. Then just a few weeks later we found out about Loo’s cancer, and that she’d have to start chemo. Her feces and any vomit would be toxic, and potentially harmful, and both diarrhea and nausea are side effects of the chemo. Therefore we went into a lockdown within a lockdown (it was late summer 2020), and started closing off spaces where I could be separated from her if I had to be if she was getting sick often. It was emotionally one of the hardest things we’ve ever done. Luckily she didn’t really have those side effects, so other than not letting her lick me too much I was able to still interact with her and pet her without issue.
Before the baby:
The first and most important things we did were 1) getting the girls used to sleeping in their crates again and 2) setting up a gate around the couch so it could be a “no dog zone” when needed. These physical barriers work to keep us all physically safe, while not being emotionally difficult because now they’re used to it. It also frankly was not safe to sleep all night in the bed with 2 kicking, twitching pit bulls once I became more heavily pregnant, and my dogs are very twitchy and kicky. We still let them up in the bed in the morning to cuddle, but they didn’t sleep with us all night anymore. The gate around the couch was harder for them at first, since they’ve never had access restricted, but after a while it became understood that if the gate was closed they had to ask for what they wanted without coming inside, by going to the door to go out, or to the kitchen for food.
Baby is with Eric inside the gate, girls in place
The next things we did were brush up on basic training. This is where we didn’t quite accomplish all our goals, since Penny is still alert barking at hallway noises and the balcony cats (her mortal enemies) which does wake up the baby from time to time. But we worked on “place”, “off”, “down” and down from a distance or while sitting, and leash walking. Leash walking got harder and harder as the pregnancy went on, so I really recommend starting that as early as possible. We also worked on ignoring demanding behavior; especially muzzle punching at our arms for attention.
Something else we did was set up all our baby equipment long before he came home, so that it wasn’t an influx of new things all at once. That meant setting up the play yard in the living room, letting them see the swing in motion (that he hates and has used for 2 minutes total, but still), and the stroller. For most people, it’s good to introduce the stroller by practicing walking next to it before there’s a baby in it. This was not that relevant to us since my dogs actually learned to walk with a stroller when we had one for Gert (which she hated) and Loo used it when she had her first tumor removed on her leg, so they’re used to strollers and had 0 reaction to this new one. You can also get a doll and practice carrying it around in baby carriers, feeding it on the couch, etc. This didn’t fool my dogs because they thought it was a toy (and politely tried to nibble on it’s hair), but might be helpful to some.
The actual introduction:
A lot of people really stress about the actual introduction. For us, we weren’t as worried about this part, because we figured we’d just do a modified version of our regular foster protocol. For the most part, this worked fine. What I did not account for was my insane hormones. While everything actually went pretty ok with the first introduction, I did not handle it well. I was extremely emotional, and cried all night that I had ruined their lives, that they would never like the baby, that they were so amped up and anxious about his sounds, etc. Spoiler: they were fine and completely ignoring him within 3 days, which is exactly what we wanted to happen.
We hadn’t been away from the girls for more than 3 hours in a year because of corona, so we knew they’d be extra amped when we got home. My sister had come to stay with them and they were happy to have her here, but they were really worked up to see us. We had her crate them upstairs in the bedroom when we arrived. I went inside the gates around the couch with the baby, and put him safely into his play yard where even if a dog breached the perimeter he’d be safe from flailing paws. Eric went upstairs and let them out so they could greet him and flop around and get some yayas out. Then he brought them downstairs on leashes and collars. They actually didn’t even notice the baby at first, because they were crying and hopping around trying to get to me. Then he started crying or made a baby noise and they realized there was something in the play pen. They immediately were on alert, tails straight up, and nervous. We put them in “place” on their beds, and kept them on leash. This was where it was helpful to have my sisters, so they could help hold onto the dogs.
Once they were a little calmer we let them sniff the car seat the baby had been in, and the clothing he had been wearing. It’s a bit of a myth that sending a blanket home from the hospital will help a dog adjust, so don’t worry about doing that. It can’t hurt, but probably doesn’t make a big difference, because it smells like a million different things in the hospital, not just the baby.
The first night was hard. It was emotionally charged, they were on high alert, I was super anxious, and we were all exhausted. Be prepared that while you may have an adorable first night together, it also might be really tough. But that doesn’t mean it’ll always be that way. Just focus on distance and looking for calm. Your goal for the first few days is calm in the same room, not an official introduction.
We just continued to follow our usual protocol of seeing and hearing and smelling through the gate but not actually meeting for a few days until the girls were disinterested. After about 3 days, they no longer really seemed to care. Having my sister here was great because she was able to cuddle and play and feed them during the day while we were busy trying to keep a brand new human alive for the first time, so we didn’t have to worry about them or be sad that they felt neglected (I mean I still cried about it, but less than I would have without her). We also upped their walks to 5 times a week, so that they would be getting exercise every day and not have too much pent up energy (in retrospect I wish we had asked for a walk on the day we came home from the hospital, but we were just too overwhelmed and sleep deprived to think of it). Once they were calm we started letting them sniff his feet and butt through the gate. Loo was more interested than Pen, who was just kind of like…why aren’t you holding ME like that?
How we’re doing now:
Things are going really well about 7 weeks in. As anticipated, Penny doesn’t care much. She gives him a drive by lick now and then, but she mostly just wants our attention and ignores him. He can’t do much for her, so why should she bother with him? This is pretty ideal for us, and we’re really proud of her. She is, however, back to sleeping in the bed. She figured out early on that we no longer were waiting out her tantrums in the crate because we didn’t want her to wake the baby, and now she doesn’t even bother sleeping half the night before starting them like she was previously (when a sleepy Eric always let her out). She now just goes in, gets her bedtime treat, and then hops back out and into the bed. She sleeps pretty quietly in between us, and isn’t at all bothered when we change the baby on the bed in the night, or if she is she gets up and moves onto our pillows. So we just let her sleep with us starting around 3 weeks, and it seems to placate some of her need for our attention. We’ve picked our battles, and the Queen won that one.
Loosey, as also predicted, is more of the worrier. She gets upset when he cries for too long, and sometimes she will come and lay at our feet or near him on the couch if I’m feeding him or if he’s napping on us. Because she was more reactive to his sounds and early on she once jumped on me to smell him, we actually ended up keeping her more separated than Penny the first few weeks. Now that she’s more used to him, we’re a little more relaxed, and we let her up on the bed or on the couch with permission. She loves to lick his feet, and will try to lick his face if I don’t gently stop her. It’s important to note these are soft, small, gentle licks that are easily redirected, not hard and pushy licks that might signal she’s uncomfortable. She is happy just to lay near her baby and supervise, and we love that for her. Her favorite is when she’s around for tummy time, and she will calmly lay down near him just to watch, or even fall asleep nearby. It’s beyond adorable.
Again, Scully still has not noticed there is a baby. He continues to scream at us and demand his food regardless of whether we have the baby or not, and regardless of what time of day it is.
Moving forward:
We still don’t have a great photo of all of them together, and I’m not going to push it. We never force them to interact with the baby, and we never will, especially not to get a photo (even though it would be adorable). We also never, ever leave them unsupervised together, even for a minute. If I’m going to wash my hands, the baby goes into his bassinet or play pen. If I stand up from tummy time, I am between him and the dogs, or ask them to move away. Things are going so well, why risk ruining it? I’m sure we’ll need to reevaluate everything once he starts moving and crawling around. There’s no way to predict how they’ll react, so we will continue to advocate for everyone’s safety and happiness (in that order). I’m sure once he starts eating solids we’re in for a whole new relationship and level of obsession. For right now, I’m so proud of the girls and how they’ve taken to this weird new stage of life. After all they are our first babies, and we promised to do whatever we had to do to keep them safe and happy when we adopted them. And yes, we still love them just as much as before we had a kid.
Penny in her dock-a-tot that is obviously exactly her size
