Question on interacting with kids

[chalstromn]

Hi Everyone!
Hope everyone is doing well. Since the server crashed, I will reintroduce myself. I have two wonderful dogs, Jade and Cobalt. This forum provided me a lot of good advice in the puppy stages. Jade and Cobalt are doing great! They are two years old now and finally settled into being normal great dogs! They still have their trying times (but what dog doesn't) but their happy panting face makes it all worth it! We are thinking of becoming a three dog household (eeeek way too much) here once they are about 5-7 years old. But we'd like to have a couple babies in the household first!

With that said, my husband and I are currently in our first year of marriage and absolutely loving it! But we would like to have children in the near future. We recently had some friends over who brought their kids. We had a 3 year old boy, 2 and a half year old boy and a 6 month old baby. I wasn't sure how the dogs would do as they haven't been around kids too much. Cobalt did great! He played with them pretty well (sometimes I think he didn't realize his size) and really enjoyed them. Jade on the other hand really struggled.

Jade in general is a very different dog. I call her my human dog. She has a lot more human type emotions than Cobalt does. She had her ears back and watched the kids from afar the entire time. The only break in that was when they were playing fetch and at that point she had Cobalt right there doing it with her. She was great with the adults, just really hesitant of the kids. Which I guess can be expected since like I said, she hasn't had much time around kids. But what really surprised me was the next morning. The 3 year old ended up spending the night. The next morning when we all woke up, the 3 year old didn't have anything to do with Jade but she did the whole ears back thing and watch from afar again. And then when the kid started playing with Cobalt a little bit, Jade started growling and hiding out.

I am a little worried that this is a snapshot into our future when we bring a baby home. I'd like to start working on it now but don't really know where to start.

Suggestions would be more than welcomed Thanks in advance

[POPTOP]

Definitely start socializing now. We go through this with each new senior who joins us. We have grans from 6 months old to 17 years old. They are told in no uncertain terms, when there is a new dog in the house, that they are not to approach the dog and we watch very carefully. Bandit had never been around a baby and when a new gran was introduced, he was not certain at all. When the baby started crawling, he actually rumbled a little. He was allowed to pick his spot and the baby was not allowed to approach. He was gently corrected for rumbling. As soon as the baby stood up, he seemed to click with him, hey, it's a human.

Potion, Melody and Mardi have been furry mommas with entire time. When introducing, they are allowed to sniff while we supervised. They have had no problems at all.

We were unconcerned about Archie. He supposedly had been around small children but with all the other lies we were told, we were not sure. I actually brought home a blanket from the hospital when Little J was born and put it on the end of the couch. It stayed there for a good week. He was allowed to greet by sniffing. It's gotten now that we just have to be sure they don't step on the baby if he's on the floor.

I would get together with a trainer and set up some situations for Jade to help her gain confidence. She sounds unsure and needs to learn that babies are good.

[Maxx&Emma]

Excellent advice Fran!

[Meeps83]

Also, many training facilities offer classes for expectant mothers and how to prepare your home and dogs. I know you aren't pregnant yet, but contacting a trainer may help regardless in your case