New Dog and Baby - Introduction

Overview

It’s an exciting time when you are expecting the arrival of a new baby or puppy. It may also be causing you some stress and anxiety over how they will bond get on. With some planning and simple training you can make the entire experience more enjoyable for everyone.

Before the Arrival

For our example we are going to imagine that you have a newborn, or very young baby and you are introducing a new puppy into your home. Our puppy training tips can help with the basics of bonding but we will cover the specific baby-puppy relationship in this article.

Your baby may be crawling or be familiar with where in the house they can move around. It’s important to create a space or room that the new puppy will be kept until they are trained not to dirty inside. So before the puppy arrives you can section off an area for them so that your baby knows that they can’t crawl in that area and it’s off-limits.

Equally, when the puppy arrives you must make sure that the baby’s room is out-of-bounds for them and they are not allowed inside. This creates boundaries for both.

If you are going to collect your new dog bring along any baby clothing that would have the smell or scent so that the dog is familiar with them before they meet for the first time.

The Puppy Arrives

Make the first meeting a positive one and only use playful nice tones when the are together. try and use treats to help the puppy associate good times with your baby.

Keep your puppy on a short leash so that they can’t jump up or frighten your baby. Allow the dog to sniff and explore the new surroundings and try to keep everything positive, even if they get over-excited and pee n the floor. Simply lift them outside and reward them if they go again in the garden.

The early training commands to work on are “sit” “stay” “down” - as these will prevent the dog becoming too boisterous and turning your baby off the new puppy. Reward all of the good behavior with petting and treats.

Hints and Tips

• Use a doll to pretend you have a baby in your arms and use this for teaching your puppy not to jump up.

• Teach your pet that when the baby is around it’s a happy playful time.

• When the baby cries hold the puppy up so that they can see everything is OK.

• Never leave your baby and pet alone together.

• Nipping is a natural puppy reaction when teething so buy specific teething toys or use ice cubes to help.

• Keep it light, and keep it fun.

If you are thinking about insuring your new puppy you can try our free online Quick Quote tool to see how much it costs. It can help prevent any nasty emergency vet bills in the future.