Helping a Pair of Pugs Get Ready to Welcome a New Baby into their Home

For this Omaha dog training session we shared tips to help 3 year-old Morty and 2 year-old Jerry, a pair of Pugs, prepare for the arrival fo the family’s first baby.

The dogs were pretty excited to see Claire and I when we arrived for the session. The guardian kept on trying to dissuade or correct the dogs for jumping up on Claire who was ignoring them. I explained that any attention can be validating to dogs and pointed out how Claire was pretending like they weren’t even there until they sat or laid down, then she gave them plenty of attention. Within a couple of minutes the dogs were sitting in front of Claire to ask for attention or sitting promptly when she asked for a sit.

Teaching good manners and boundaries are important lessons to start before you welcome a new baby into a home with dogs.

I shared a number of tips to make sure that the dogs are being properly exercise physically and mentally as well as how to reward desired behaviors to motivate the dogs to offer them more frequently.

I recommended that the guardians enlist the services of a dog walker a few weeks before the baby is due. Getting the dogs into a routine before there’s gonna be a big change can be really beneficial. This way when all the family and guests arrive and time is scarce due to all the activity, there’s an extra hand in place who can walk the dogs that the dogs are comfortable with.

I also recommended that they have the dog walker on hand for the few days that the mother is in the hospital and then arrange to have the dog walker hang out the first day the baby comes home. This way if the dogs get over excited, they can take them out for a quick walk or they can take the dogs and sit in another room and play with them while everyone else focuses on the baby.

But I wanted to share a number of other tips to help dogs and new babies get along. Something that is important for every new family to do is to start conditioning the dogs to stay out of the nursery. Often people let their dogs follow them everywhere which is normally not an issue. But if there’s going to be a time when you’re going to want the dogs to be apart from you, it’s important you help them practice that behavior before you need it.

I handed my phone to Claire so that she could record me doing a video of secrets to help dogs get along with a new baby. If you are expecting a baby and have dogs, you should check out the free positive dog training video below.

Although it was tight quarters to shoot the video, I was quite pleased with how well the dogs responded. After we shot the video, the guardians practiced the exercise as well, so you dont have to be a professional Pug dog trainer to do this. Just have time, a dog bed and some tasty treats.

The other tips about introducing a baby to dogs will help quite a bit. Especially the part about introducing the dogs to the baby’s scent before it come home. That along with playing baby crying noises and pretend diaper changes can really set dogs up for success.

I recommended the guardians practice those along with this exercise to keep dogs out of the baby room a few times a day every day while gradually increasing the length of time the dogs stay on the dog bed out of the room. This way, by the time the baby comes, hanging out outside the nursery is a normal behavior for them.

We cover a number of other dog behavior tips in this in-home dog training session so I recorded roadmap to success video to make it easy for the gardens to remember them all.