Hey guys,

I have just found out I am expecting and whilst I have no worries about introducing my husky to a baby (I have bought some books on this transition) I was wondering if any parents can give me some advice.

My girl, nikiya, is a friendly playful dog who is fantastic with children. However, being a typical 10 month old husky she is very excitable on the lead and in the house. Should I try some dog training classes with her as I a bit nervous about walking her whilst pushing a pram or her running around the house in a mad moment and knocking into the baby as it starts to crawl etc.

Any advice on how you parents have coped?

Congratulations! I have a 12 month old daughter and another one on the way too. Our second is due in November.

What I did was start introducing changes in the house, cribs, changing tables, swings, strollers, all types of new baby stuff well in advance so the dogs had plenty of time to adjust to those subtle changes and learn what was off limits. I did not play crying baby sounds or practice walking with a stroller before the baby was born like some people do and my dogs adjusted just fine.

I would strongly recommend that you get any and all necessary training worked out ASAP so that you have a well behaved dog without any issues long before the baby comes. You don't want to be heavily pregnant and fighting a dog with bad leash manners. Also be sure to have help lined up well in advance. If you end up on strict bed rest, like I did for 4 weeks, you will need someone to take care of exercising the dog for you.

Also, if your dog is not used to being separated via a baby gate or crate, you may want to get them used to it now. You never know when you might need to utilize such a tool and having a dog that's already accustomed to it is preferable to one that freaks out when it happens for the first time.

That's all that is coming to mind at the moment.

I have no advice just wanted to compliment Val her great advice I think she knows what she is talking about.

My kids are all grown and living else where.

Congrats.

Thankyou

The dog is crate trained and loves her crate and I have a baby gate up already on my kitchen door for during the day when she's in the kitchen/ outside. I do worry a bit about her feeling isolated if I Put her in the kitchen when I'm
In sat infront of her though.

I had read about wiping your skin with baby wipes, playin cryin sounds and having the clothes the baby has on in the hospital Put in the crate for the dog to smell. Also read that the dog should be brought into the house when the baby is already there?

I am thinking of taking her to dog training classes but another thing was teaching the dog not to steal the babies toys and play with her own?

Thanks I'll begin setting things up early in the house

One thing I saw on youtube a long time ago was a lady who was trying to get their husky use to a baby so she started to carry around a baby doll.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N435QDsYZwk

I think some things are a bit overkill but I won't tell anyone not to do them. I didn't do anything excessive with my dogs and they adjusted just fine. There is a huge difference between a crying newborn and listening to an audio file so I never bothered with any of that. I also did not have anyone bring something home with baby's scent before bringing her home from the hospital. I just had visiting family put all the dogs away before we got home from the hospital and introduced the dogs to the baby one at a time.

As for the babies toys, that's something I trained on the fly. Putting a babies toys on the floor prior to bringing a baby home and trying to teach the dog not to touch them is just mean and torturous if you ask me. So when baby is home and his/her toys are on the floor you can use that opportunity to teach your sibe what they are and are not allowed to touch. You'll never leave your baby unattended with a dog so there will never be an opportunity for the dog to be left alone with the baby's toys unless you don't pick up before moving on.

A lot of things you work on as you go along, I wouldn't worry too much right now. The only thing I would really work on is getting your dog where you want her to be training-wise. The sooner you get any and all behavior/training issues resolved the better. The loose leash walking is a big one. A problem I had to work with my sibe on was jumping up on me when he was playing. It was never a concern for years before but once I was pregnant I couldn't have him jumping up on my stomach so I had to really crack down on the training early in my pregnancy.

Imagine you are 8 months pregnant with a huge belly, swollen feet and ankles, an aching back, a baby doing aerobics in your belly, round ligament pain in your sides so bad that you cannot stand up for more than a few minutes at a time, and having difficulty doing normal day to day things. Now imagine your husky in that same scenario and ask yourself what issues she has currently that would not be good in that 8 months heavily preggo scene. Whatever you wouldn't want to deal with in that 8 months preggo scene you need to start working on now!

Congrats to both of you on the expectancy

Congratulations!
While I do not have kids so I cannot really add much to Val's great advice, we do have kids in our house pretty often, or see them often.
Our 2 have been in contact with our neice from very early (they are even invited to her first birthday) and they know to be gentle with her. She has bounced on them (in delight) and stolen their bones, neither have ever done a single thing. That being said we NEVER leave them unattended of course. We had to work on the toy thing with Ripley, she kept trying to play with my neices little bobble toy that spun and lit up. It fascinated her. It took a little bit, but they leave her toys alone now for the most part.

You definitly want to make sure you are confident in how your dog behaves (like Val said about jumping) because you won't be as mobile in a few months and you wont want to have to fight the dog to not pull you down the street when walking. I know the energy level is super high at that age, but if you get the stroller early, maybe take practice walks with it so that you know how she reacts and how it is easiest to walk with both.


Good luck!

Val's got great advice having just been through this (and congrats again, Val, and congrats Jasmine!!). Our first husky was 5 years old when we introduced her to our first son. I really think she was never crazy about sharing life with the new babies, but she coped. Of course we always supervised the two of them together and I just think the dog knew to be gentle. I have never heard the theory of introducing baby wipe scent. I think dogs probably try to avoid perfumey scents and will pay more attention to the smell of baby spittle and poop (and that will probably smell a little like his Mom...).

I really second the idea of taking these next 5 months of so and really focus on training appropriate doggy behavior. Doing that will make life much easier when you are dealing with a hyper dog and sleep deprivation. Your pup is much younger than mine (and Val's) was.

I never walked the dog and stroller together. We used a child backpack (best invention...ever!) when taking the dog and kid. We often went on neighborhood walks with dog, kid and both parents, but I was never brave enough to go it alone!

Good luck!!

Thankyou everyone!

I have been a bit emotional recently over the fact that some of my friends and family have expressed their views on the matter assuming I would get rid of my dog. She is a brilliant dog with all round good manners and has never shown anything but affection and tolerance towards all the young children in my family. So I am very insulted that my family would even suggest this - she is IMO an excellent family dog!

As for her leash manners, she is overall fairly well behaved with very little pulling... It is just if she sees another dog she will begin to bounce around a little and this is Definately something I need to work on. If the worst comes to the worst I will just not take her out with the pram and wait until my partner is home to walk her whilst he takes care of the baby.

Thanks for the support

Congrats on the pregnancy!

I also have very little advice as my daughter was 12 when we got Saphire.

That said, I do routinely take care of my niece who is very young and have tried the stroller and dog thing with absolutely NO sucess. Therefore, I second the backpack idea.

I think with a little work on your part and some diligent observation that you, your partner, your new baby, and your pup will make a wonderful family.

BTW - Can't wait to see pics of the new baby!

I wouldn't give up on walking with a stroller/pram. A dog well trained in loose leash manners should take to it with time. I had trained my sibe to walk on a loose leash years before I had my daughter and while he was wary of the stroller at first, he quickly associated it with walks so he learned quite fast to like the stroller. While I was still pregnant I bought a hands free waist leash for walking the dog with the stroller to use after the baby was born. This way I could have both hands free to maneuver the stroller or do whatever I needed to do with the baby on walks.

The backpacks are great for walks when they are younger, but once they get heavier it can be rather uncomfortable. I had to stop carrying my daughter in my ERGObaby carrier (highly recommended by the way) when she was 10 months old. She was just too heavy at that point to carry and walk. No way I could do the carrier for walks from that point on, it had to be with the stroller. I still carry her on my back in the Ergo around the house today, but walks is just too much strain on my hips with that much weight.

Another bit of advice is to ignore all the people telling you to give up your dog because of the baby. I'm sure Val can attest that the baby will grow up LOVING that dog, so who cares how much dog hair the baby ingests, how many baby toys are mistaken for puppy toys, how much dirt the dog tracks in and the baby crawls through, how many times the dog licks the baby's open mouth!! They are having fun and neither will get sick or die! We had so many older women (including grandmothers and great-aunts) giving us advice about how to raise our child and why the dog had to go. It's annoying and very hard to maintain respectful relationships with dear family members at times. Just do research and be prepared for all the "advice" to come. And dog advice won't be the end of it... It starts with advice for the pregnancy, then the birth, and of course the nursing and feeding including scheduling or not scheduling, the potty training (OH...the potty training advice...*shiver*)... Just learn to smile and grunt alot!

Yep, I had family members tell me I needed to get rid of my dogs while I was pregnant. And yes, be prepared for loads of unsolicited advice. I just smile and thank people for their advice and then do my own thing.

Congratulations! Honestly, I've never owned a dog who loved children so much. I do daycare from home and have children of all ages (my niece is only a month old) and Selena absolutely loves them to pieces. She plays with them, talks to them, lounges with them, kisses them! Even tells me when the kids awake in their beds and barks next to their bed lol! I broke her out of the habit of stealing the kids toys right away, using the leave it command and giving her one of her toys. She has her own bucket of toys & the kids have their's. The only thing I am still working on with her is jumping up on the kids when she first sees them, she gets so excited (what husky doesn't). So I would say as long as you're good with that you should be absolutely fine!

Here's Selena hanging out with her best friend

Congrats on the pregnancy!! I don't have any kids at this point, but I do like seeing all the different advice that is being given. My older Husky has had experience with a baby, my boyfriends brother's daughter. The first time they met he was still 1 and she was probably about a year, year and a half. She would love to crawl on him and take his toys, and he was absolutely an angel. Just let her do her thing. Now he knows that she is the queen of cookies, so he loves her even more now, because she constantly wants to give him his favorite things, cookies. (Cookies in the sense of a dog bone treat). You're Sibe more than likely will have no problems at all with the new baby in the house.

Thanks guys

I'm defs going to need to deal with the advice a bit better because at the moment I'm just flipping out at people like how dare they suggest me getting rid of my dog!

I will certainly look into the baby backpack idea for walks.

Love the pictures laura how sweet!

Me and my hubby aren't planning on kids yet but its good to read all the advice out there. I got Karli when I did so I could have her trained the way I wanted before we did start having kids. One thing I've been doing lately because of her leash pulling was I got her an easywalk harness. Its only for walks, and it has worked wonders. We now walk at my pace, not Karli's pace and if she turns herself around (or flips, she's done that a couple times) o well, its her fault and she's learning. So maybe try that with a pram and see if it helps? My biggest issue right now is she doesn't stay on one side of the sidewalk, she's all over the place lol, but with a pram that shouldn't be an issue.

Congratulations to you both!! And I wouldn't ever get rid of my pup either because I was pregnant, to be honest sibes aren't aggressive in the least (at least most of them lol) so why everyone freaks out is beyond me. I got a sibe because of how good with people they are.