K9 Manners: Introducing A Dog To Your Baby & Adjusting To A New House

Animal trainer Mary Green of K9 Manners & more joined News On 6 to talk about some behavior problems or issues you may have been struggling with, with your dog.

First up, let's talk about the best way to acclimate a dog to a new baby in the family.

Green: It's such a unique situation, partly because you have so many people around. You bring home a new baby and the grandparents are over, and maybe their siblings or, you know, it's just a big deal. Is the crying like a big issue as well? Very much so, and even the carrying. So you can practice things before you bring the baby home. You can get a very realistic baby doll, and practice picking it up, carrying it around, patting it. Dogs are often intrigued by when a baby's being carried by their little feet sticking out of a blanket, right? And so they might jump up and want to sniff that. So you want to really work on solid sit behavior, so that there is no jumping up. You want to never, ever, ever, ever leave a baby unsupervised with a pet, right? With a dog, whether they're in the in the crib or in a swing or any kind of baby apparatus, just make sure that that you have 100% supervision going on at all times, because weird things can happen, right? But introducing the dog when you bring the baby home from the hospital, let's talk about that moment because it's so special. As babies wrapped up, I would definitely want you to have the dog on a leash, right, just so that he doesn't have full access to just, you know, examine the baby everywhere, and then you let the dog sniff their scalp. That's where, that's where they really have the best opportunity to really investigate, not the diaper area, stay clear that, but just a little scalp sniff. You can also take a blanket home from the hospital or wherever and let the dog kind of get used to that smell before you bring the baby home and let the dog realize that's family.

What are your recommendations for helping a dog feel comfortable in a new house when moving?

Green: So one of the things with my dogs, the last time that I moved, which was many years ago, was when I packed up their bowls, they're like, oh, okay, we're going somewhere. You know, the whole house was packed up. It was when we packed up their bowls that they're like, oh, wait, this is serious. You know, there could be no furniture in the house, but pick up the dog bowl. So first of all, make sure it's very thoroughly cleaned before you move in, so there are no remnants of other animals being in there. Take them around on the leash. Take them outside. Start showing them what the boundaries are, as long as they know where they're going to potty, sleep, eat and drink their water, they're pretty good, so show them where all those things are going to happen and then stick with your plan.