Adjusting the Family Dog to the New Baby
By: Melissa Sedlacek
Tags: Family, Dogs, Newborn, Momlife

Gunner playing with his ball in the backyard.

BACKSTORY

I love my Rottweiler, Gunner. He is the craziest dog that I know and he’s a hardcore mama’s boy. My husband and I got him as soon as we moved into our house, so he’s pretty much been with us since day one of our marriage. The three of us had the greatest times together and went on so many adventures! Thankfully, once Isaac joined the family, Gunner welcomed him with excitement and love. Since Gunner is going to be turning one at the end of the month, I thought it would be appropriate to share how my husband and I were able to help Gunner learn to accept Isaac into our home.

HOW WE PREPARED HIM

Research

Obviously, I had to do my research! Scanning through multiple parenting and dog websites, I found helpful tips that really worked for my family. Like I stated in other posts, every family is different, so what worked for my family might not work for others. However, I know that the tips that I followed worked well for many others so I figured it would be worth sharing with everyone.

Tips and Tricks That Worked for Us:

· We hammered down on his training. I can’t stress how much this has helped our family since having Isaac. It’s so important that dogs know basic commands and obedience before you have a baby so that they’ll be able to listen and cooperate when you need them to.

· We let him become familiar with the baby equipment. This helped so that we weren’t bombarding Gunner with a bunch of new things once the baby arrived. As we added things to the nursery, we let him check them out and see them up close so that nothing was unfamiliar to him. As my due date got closer, we even went on walks with the stroller so that he was able to get used to walking alongside of it. This is also a good time to establish how your dog should act around the baby’s equipment. Differentiate between what’s a baby toy and what’s a dog toy so that there’s no confusion in the future.

· We let him be around smaller children. While it may seem like a possibly dangerous idea, we had to see how Gunner acted around small children. The last thing we wanted was to bring Isaac home and find out that Gunner DID NOT like kids. So, in order to test this, we closely observed him around our nephew and a few kids from our church. Lucky for us, Gunner absolutely loved them so we were able to have peace of mind knowing that Gunner would act well around Isaac.

· We established who would watch him while we were at the hospital. This is so important to establish early on in the pregnancy so that when the time comes, you know where your little fur baby will go. We decided Gunner would stay with my in-laws since he absolutely loves playing at their house and being with their two dogs. In hindsight, we chose such a good pet sitter since we ended up being in the hospital a lot longer than we planned. It gave us comfort knowing that our dog was looked after and having a fun time while we were away.

Gunner meeting Isaac for the first time.

HOW WE KEEP OUR DOG INCLUDED IN OUR FAMILY

Fun fact: parenting is HARD and its time consuming! It’s funny how you never quite understand that until you’re actually a parent. But being that parenting is like this, it’s easy for our pets to be pushed to the back burner of our busy lives. Suddenly you’re constantly tired and don’t have the energy for a walk around the neighborhood. Or you’re so busy that you don’t have a spare hand to throw the ball in the backyard. Without even realizing it, you can potentially push your dog to the side. But this type of lifestyle isn’t fair to your dog or your family. In order to prevent this, we took action to make sure that Gunner feels just as loved and as cared for as before.

Gunner and my husband, Nathaniel, down at the river.

What We Did to Make Him Feel Included:

· We purposely found time to give him attention. Yeah, it might seem like you don’t have time to be playing with a dog, but I promise you that you do. My husband and I always make sure that he gets a good cuddle session every time we come home. We also make a point to spend time with him while Isaac is sleeping.

· We take him on family outings. This is Gunner’s personal favorite. If we are planning on making a trip to a pet-friendly store, we always make a point to bring Gunner with us. He loves seeing new people and getting the attention from strangers. Most of all, he just likes being with his family.

· We make sure he’s able to let loose regularly. Being that he’s a Rottweiler, he has crazy high energy levels. So, in order to release this pent-up energy, we like to take him places where he can run around, play, and explore. We often take him to my in-laws’ place so that he can romp around with other dogs and run around their yard. We also like to go hiking with him so that he can play in the water and sniff around.

· We treat him. Although we don’t often give him treats at home, we love to take him out when we go to get ice cream so that he can get a doggy cone. Little acts like that make his day and he obviously loves to eat yummy food!

Gunner eating ice cream at his favorite ice cream shop.

PARTING THOUGHTS

We knew when we got our dog that he was always going to be a part of our family no matter what. He’s been with us since the beginning and although our family dynamics might change, our love for our fur baby never will!

If you know someone who has a dog and is expecting, share this post!