Johann Sabastian Bark, our dog.We have a 65 pound chocolate lab who lives indoors with us. If any of you have tips as to how to prepare him for the baby, we'd greatly appreciate your advise. Until now, he has been our baby. Sometimes, I'm not sure whether or not he even knows that he is a dog. We treat him pretty much as part of the family. When we bring our newest family member home, I'm not sure how he is going to react. Will he be jealous? Will he lick the baby too much. Will he play too rough with the baby? To complicate matters, we've always bought baby toys for the dog. The baby toys usually don't have hard plastic eyes and generally seem to last longer than dog toys. So, now we have the dilemma: How do we keep him from playing with the baby's toys? Any tips?
2 comments:
I LOVE your dog's name!
We have a black lab/ springer mix named Chauncy (not nearly as creative as Johann S. Bark!). He was an indoor dog when I was pregnant and remained an indoor dog until Olivia turned two. At that time, we moved from the city to the country and now live on 14 acres, including a three-acre pond. Chauncy PREFERS being outside - so now he runs free --sleeps in a grand "cabin" in the garage which my husband built for him.
Anyway....while I was expecting, I carried a bundle of blankets around the house and talked to and cuddled the blankets to get Chauncy used to that. Then, before Olivia came home, we brought home a blanket which she had slept with and let Chauncy sniff it. When Olivia finally came home (she spent two months in the hospital - a preemie - only 2 pds 7 oz...rough start - but is our miracle! --she's perfect today). Anway....when she came home, we introduced Chauncy to her down the street from our house --so he wasn't on our property. In just the same way you're supposed to introduce a new puppy to the household. Chauncy accepted her immediately --never harmed her. Never chewed on her toys --and his toys were similar. We just told him "no" --and he listened. It didn't take him long to differentiate between his toys and hers. He was a little jealous --we took extra care to make sure he got plenty of love and attention. Now he and Olivia are the best of friends! I'm sure you won't have a problem. Labs are generally very good with children.
That's my long, rambling bit of advice.
:)
Deb
Love the picture
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