Toddler and dog, getting along

Snuggle time with dog and baby. (Photo by Seth Darlington)

My son, as I have noted before, is obsessed with dogs and the word “dog.” He seems to have a super sensitive dog radar that can find a canine within a five-mile radius, to which he then points and booms, “dog,” until someone acknowledges that yes, he is right, that is indeed another dog. Even as his vocabulary has expanded a bit, that word is still a favorite.

I am partly to blame for this phenomenon. We have a dog, and I eagerly encouraged this as a first word. As with many families, our dog was our first baby, and we’ve done our best to not completely disregard her when my son arrived. We’ll see what happens if we have a second baby.

I had a lot of anxiety about how our pup, Bean, would react to instant second-class citizenry when the baby was born. I wouldn’t say she’s spoiled in the sense that she sleeps in our bed or eat scraps from the table. We’ve been pretty good at discipline – we’ve had to: She’s a pit bull, and I have no delusions about what the breed is capable of.

When we were looking for a dog, I refused to get a pit bull. We live in a city where these dogs are bred and fought, and we see evidence of that all around us: bulked up pits wearing heavy chain collars or battered pups with scars on their faces.

But then my family rescued this dog, then named Gaia and then Catfish then finally Bean. We fell in love with her and took her home. I told myself and others for a very long time that she was a pit mix – until a dog trainer said, “Yeah, maybe a pit mixed with pit.”

Knowing she was a breed with a bad reputation, we hired a dog trainer who helped teach us basics: sit, heel, come, stay. The idea was to constantly remind her we were in charge. The pack leaders. And for a long time, it had worked out pretty well.

But what would happen when we brought a baby home from the hospital that smelled and cried and demanded all of our attention?

Bean knew something was afoot a couple weeks before my son was born. For a week straight, she went to the bathroom in the house during the day. Even on days when I worked from home, she would wait until that half hour I was away running an errand, then poop in the hallway. One whole week of this.

Of course I called the dog trainer in a panic, who told me she probably could sense the impending birth – my hormone shift or rising anticipation of baby. (Sure enough, he was born soon after the Week of Indoor Pooping.)

Before my son was born, though, we wanted to be prepared. So our trainer taught us a few tricks that I wish we had more time to work on (little dude came earlier than anticipated),

Here are some of the tips:

• First, set out a blanket on the floor and teach the dog not to walk across it. The idea is that you are setting boundaries and making sure a tiny newborn having tummy time on a blanket won’t get trampled. With voice commands and treat in hand, lead the dog across the room, but stop and redirect her away from the blanket. Nine times out of 10, Bean just laid right on the blanket. Again, we needed more practice.

• Second, make the dog sit at the top of the steps and stay there until you’ve descended and given her the all-clear to come down. The idea here is that you don’t want to be tripped my a furry four-legger when you’re navigating stairs with a baby in hand. Once you’ve made it down safely, she can come down (or up.) Bean did pretty well on this one, knowing the command to wait and being very food-motivated for the treat at the bottom of the stairs.

I stressed a lot about their first meeting, but that was quick and fairly painless. Our dog was insanely curious about this smelly new squeaking blob, but after a while she got over it. As we relaxed, she relaxed. And in general, she has been over the whole baby scene from the start. She might not respect the baby blanket boundary or give us deference on the stairs, but she seems calm in his presence, even has he has become unstoppably mobile.

And I think she secretly loves the attention she gets from a kid obsessed with dogs. When we’re playing on the floor, she will sit uncomfortably close and chew a bone like she’s part of the action. When she gets nudged or poked, she jumps up and look at me like, “Hey, did you see that? He is encroaching on my personal space. You’re just going to let that happen?” Then she settles right back in next to us.

Even when we have friends over and a mess of babies underfoot, Bean does fine. Far from retreating to a quiet corner, she hovers on the sidelines of the action. Maybe because she’s guaranteed food from clumsy toddler hands.

Meanwhile, we have been trying to teach my son how to gently pet her. “Gentle,” we tell him, showing him how to lightly stroke her back. Usually she just scoots away. We haven’t yet really reached a major toddler hitting phase, of which I fear Bean will feel the brunt and our tactics will have to be more firm.

Here are a few other pointers I picked up in my Googling:

• When you praise the kid for being gentle to the dog, praise the pup too, presumably for tolerating the whole shenanigans. I think this makes our dog feel more relaxed and included.

• Make sure the pup has her own safe spot. For Bean, it’s under the dining room table or one of a couple dog beds around the house. We try to keep the kid away from these spots, or at least distract baby from invading them when we can tell dog needs some alone time.

• Teach the little one not to approach strange dogs on the street. We haven’t had to enforce this one too much, as right now my kid is satisfied with pointing and saying “dog” very loudly to any poor soul within earshot.

• Don’t leave the two alone together. This is probably good practice for any dog and baby, and we mostly try to remember it. Really, I’m not at a point where I can leave my kid unsupervised for even a second, lest he destroy something.

Despite all my worry, the two seem to coexist fine. I’m not sure they’ll ever be BFFs, but so far Bean is tolerant, and my kid’s pretty gentle. Only recently has he started trying to chase after her, which we immediately kibosh. Luckily, as with most things with a kid, they ramp up slowly, giving everyone (the dog in this case) time to adjust.