Babies and Dogs: a different perspective

[Adina P]

I would say Natalie is magnetized by the definition in this woman's article. 

http://dogsandbabies.wordpress.com/2011/01/24/mamas-dont-let-your-b...

 

But...I'm not sure I have any ideas for how to strike a balance.  Knives don't walk around the house and approach and follow you from room to room.  What do the rest of you think about this woman's perspective and how to achieve a balance?

 

 

[Joanne ~ Spud*]

The best advice I was given when I had my children was to read all the books I possibly could then~ Throw Them All Out When the Child Was Born!   Same here.  Throw away the article and live your life the way you already know how.

[Jennifer,Chloe & Myla]

So funny! So true! Why confuse yourself with a book when you can experiment on your own kids!?!?!?

[Sue]

I as a "Grandma" now, have to wonder how our kids made it through to adulthood without all the "experts' and their books telling us how to do it, LOL

[NewfoundlandNic]

Adina, thanks for posting this. I am a mother of a three year old and a 9 month old and most recently a 9 week old doodle. I didn't just read the original link, but I read the whole series. Although her examples are a little extreme, her conclusion was very sensitive and celebrated the relationship kids can have with dogs. It is going to be hard to strike a balance, my nine month old might be in the process of being "magnetized" so I am going to be more conscious of that. My three year old isn't that much - he likes Georgia the doodle to play with him and lick him, but he can easily ignore her too. That is probably a product of him having our Lab cross in his life from day one, she was gentle to a fault but kept to herself, so Reagan (the toddler) didn't get accustomed to playing with her. Sadly we lost her to cancer last year.

 

I can see how Dylan (my baby) would get "magnetized" by Georgia, she really does look like a stuffed animal that moves at this point. I'll have to regulate that. Obviously we are already totally focused on not allowing Georgia to jump/lick/get too close to the baby and learn her place on the totem pole.

 

So although extreme, it provides good food for thought for me - despite having been raised with dogs my entire life and definitely being "magnetized" myself by cats and dogs since infancy.

 

 

 

[Jennifer Tramell]

You know, I've seen plenty of "magnetized" children who don't even have a dog at home.  They are enthralled with dogs but have no experience.  Some of my best friends have kids but no dogs.  When young, those kids would follow my dogs around, blow in their face, lay on them like a pillow, etc, etc, etc.  My dogs will let "their" kids do anything but they don't appreciate being treated that way by non-family.

[Lucy & AnnaBelle's Mom]

I think that in order for this whole concept to work you better have one well behaved dog  ...... otherwise the dog will be searching out the baby to lick and kiss or won't want to just sit on the other end of the sofa, will want to sit where the baby is.  Just sayin ....... seems to me a little extreme.  I'm more about teaching coexisting in a respectful manner with both my dogs and the dogs of others!

[Jane, Guinness and Murphy]

This is something I struggle with when the grandkids are here.  My younger daughter has four boys, including four and one year olds.  They have a Golden Retriever of their own, and I'd say they are both magnetized to that dog.  Their Owen is very laid back, and lets those kids do just about anything to him.  They crawl all over him, take his toys away....the baby even used Owen to pull himself up when he was first learning to walk.  At any point in time they have fistfulls of Owen's hair in their hands.  This dog just wags his tail and comes back for more.  So, assume they are fully "magnetized".  Then they come here and they assume that dogs are dogs (kids don't generalize too well either), and they start behaving the same with my two guys.  I have been trying to teach them the way they SHOULD behave with dogs, but they're not "getting it" - just too young.  Guinness is very patient, and I believe he has an extremely high bite threshold, so I don't worry too much about him.  Murph is another story.  I can tell by his body language that he's uncomfortable when the kids are "in his face....literally".  He's wary and not liking it one bit.  My sense is that he has a pretty low bite threshold.  As a result, I know have to keep him leashed with me or gated in the bedroom when the little kids are here.  I just wouldn't take a chance.  My daughter (the mother) thinks I'm crazy.  We actually had a situation a while ago where Murph did "snap" at the four year old...that's when I implemented the "leash rule".  My daughter said "he was just play biting...all puppies do that".  I don't think so.  She needs to read this article.

[Allyson, Peri & Taquito]

I don't have kids yet, but our niece and nephew have helped us prep for how to handle the dogs around our kids. They both don't have dogs in the house, so they are even more drawn to Taquito and Peri.  The 2 year old calls T. a "kitty" and chases him. He doesn't get the "be gentle", "approach slowly" thing... The girl, on the other hand, is approaching 4 and gets it.  When she was two, I left the room and she ran up to Tacky and pulled his ear. T. had had enough (parents repeatedly told Sophia to be gentle, but never really did much to stop her).  Tacky bit her nose (gently, didn't break skin).  Ever since then, she is so careful with Tacky and gets how you should approach a dog.  She is the same with Peri (although Peri would let you run all over her).

I guess what I think I will do with our future kids is to start from the getgo telling them to approach slowly and gently with our dogs and to be careful/don't approach animals you don't know when mom is not around.  That's what my parents did with us and we always had dogs. Longest time without was a few months.

On another note, I don't think I am going to read any parenting books.  Maybe some pregnancy or baby books but not parenting. Mom and dad never read those and at 29, I think it is pretty safe to say that they did an excellent job raising us and if I could mimic them, I would.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

I'll second the fact that your parents did an excellent job! :)