Remember that preparation to bring your new baby home should include more care than buying a stroller or painting a nursery. When you have a dog, especially one that has any sort of guarding or aggression issues, make sure to give your dog clarity and “set your dog up for success and not failure™”. Help your dog and baby become lifelong friends.
You may ask, how can I introduce my dog to a baby who is not yet born? Even more strange, how will this dog understand that the baby is here to stay and not just a visiting playmate? How can you create an environment of love and respect of your dog and for your new child? How can you possibly teach a dog to respect something that will not arrive for several months?
Remember that nearly everything that dogs do, from nursing on their mothers to finding a crumb on the floor, is done by sense of smell. When puppies are born, the only sense they have is their sense of smell. Their eyes and ears are closed. They can barely move or drag their short legged bodies more than a few inches at a time. At about eleven to fourteen days, the newborn pup is finally able to open his eyes and see momma–though it often takes several days for the sight to align properly. At approximately twenty one days of age, the puppy’s ears open and now he can hear. This is why dogs rely so heavily and primarily on their sense of smell.
We can utilize this process of nature to our benefit. Any time your dog is going to be introduced to a new person, particularly young children or babies, make sure to first introduce your dog to their smell by taking something with their scent and placing it in a resealable plastic bag along with the smells of other people and animals. All of the smells will intermingle. Then take one of these paper towels and place it in the bag of dog food. This will transfer the smells from the paper towel to the dog kibble. When your dog puts his head down to eat, he will smell the scents of all the people and animals who he thinks ate his food before him. This will establish that he is not in charge, since he certainly hasn’t eaten first.
Imagine you are at a fancy restaurant and you order an expensive bottle of wine. You receive two glasses and your wine steward pours the wine into the glasses. As you prepare to sip the wine, you notice that there are several different colors of lipstick prints on your glasses. Do you drink the wine? Probably not. Let’s “think like a dog”™ and ask ourselves why we would not drink from the glass. Each of us believes that we are a leader in our own right. Leaders eat first and whenever they want. Leaders do not eat after the rest of the pack. Therefore, when your dog smells the scents of others, he may actually not eat for a few meals as he is not prepared to step down as a leader and eat after the family members have eaten. Some dogs may go for two or even three days without eating once they smell that others have eaten before them. This is generally only the case with more dominant dogs.
So how does this pertain to new interactions with babies or toddlers? Well, first of all, you dog may think that a baby’s toys, since they are on the ground and roughly the same size and shape as dog toys, belong to them. If your dog is possessive over items or food, you can see that a crawling baby or toddler might get nipped or bitten since a dog might want to protect what it perceives it owns. Placing the scent of your new baby teaches your dog in a very natural and uncomplicated way that the person whose scent is on the food in its bowl is there first because that individual ranks higher and thus ate before the dog.
Take another one of the paper towel in the resealable plastic bag and rub it on the dogs bed, toys and other areas in which it might loiter or feel protective. The carpet near the front door, an area near the bedroom and particularly the dog’s crate area are great places to disperse the scent of others. Remember that the less the dog feels he owns, the less he feels he needs to protect.
So how then do we collect scent from an unborn baby? Have the expectant mother sit on the paper towel and then use that. Once the baby is born, have a family memeber or friend bring back the baby’s swaddling blanket and place it inside a resealable plastic bag with paper towels. Use those paper towels to put the baby’s scent on perceivably everything the dog may believe is his. Place one in the dog’s dog food, on his bed and near his dog toys. This will teach the dog that the baby has already been there and will teach the dog that the baby is above the dog in status within the family or pack.
For a couple who own a dog with behavioural problems, make sure to plan ahead and call a behavorist. Do not rush to judgment assuming you will need to find your dog a new home but rather seize the opportunity to make a change. Begin to teach your dog instead of “training” your dog. Teach your dog a new set of rules and give him the time to process, incorporate and follow your new direction.
