Preparing pugs for the human baby.

Hi All. My first post on this forum and looking for some suggestions. (I'm user Maizee on PV.)

Our little girl is due February 1, 2010. She'll be our first human child. I want to start preparing the pugs now for her arrival. Of course, there is only so much we can do until we're all shocked into the reality of having a child in the house.

As most pugs, Maizee and Mugzy are the center of our world. Both are my shadows. They are a bit older now (5 and 6 yrs old) and much less playful than earlier years. They would be completely content laying around the house all day with me. They have been around my nephews since they were puppies, but now only interact with children about once a month or so.

They've obviously noticed changes in the house. We moved around bedrooms to accommodate the nursery. They go there when I'm working on sorting and arranging things.

To those of you who have kids, babies especially, will you please provide some words of wisdom so I can start to make them as comfortable as possible when Emilee makes her grand entrance?

Childproofing Your Dog: A Complete Guide to Preparing Your Dog for the Children in Your Life (Paperback)
Brian Kilcommons
(Author)
Sarah Wilson
(Author)


This is supposedly a very good book for getting everyone ready!!

And here's a quick article by Jean Donaldson:

Oh, baby: Preparing your dog for the new arrival

December 1, 2008, By Jean Donaldson, ARTICLE, Article, BEHAVIOUR

When
I was an undergrad in the 1980s, I worked a summer job at the Montreal
SPCA as an adoption counsellor. Our hearts sank whenever we saw an
obviously about-to-deliver woman come up the ramp with the intention of
adopting a dog.
Our trepidation had to do with the higher-than-usual likelihood of
the dog’s return to the shelter once the domestically appealing idea of
dog (or worse, puppy) and baby arriving in rapid succession gave way to
the inevitably chaotic reality. The common denominator among these
failures was lack of preparation, in some cases simply because there
wasn’t time between the acquisition of a dog, his training, and the
plunge into parenthood.
In the ensuing years of counselling dog owners, I was relieved to
see oodles of people succeed, including dog moms who expanded their
horizons to become dog and baby moms.
What these successful families had in common was advance preparation: get the dog up to speed before the baby arrives.
The three areas I recommend you work on before the baby’s arrival are:
• building a positive emotional response from your dog to babies;
• a strong obedience behaviour that will come in handy; and
• management and logistics plans and procedures to make your life easier.
Creating a happy response to babies
Get some items from a young baby, things that will really smell like a
baby: unwashed bedding or clothes, or even a used diaper. If you don’t
know anybody with a baby who can lend you some, put up a poster at a
Lamaze class in your area, or at a local baby store. Put each item in a
freezer bag and zip it shut. Now get a supply of out-of-this-world
treats, something like roast chicken pieces. Fill a couple of zip-lock
bags with these goodies.
Several times each day, take one of the baby-item bags and one of
the treat bags, sit down somewhere and invite your dog over. Open the
bag with the baby item. Let your dog sniff it for a good five or 10
seconds. Praise him the whole time and when the five to 10 seconds are
up, give him a generous helping from the goodie bag. Praise him a
little longer, then zip up both bags and put them away. Follow this
procedure to the letter no matter what he does. He might sniff
interestedly, be relatively uninterested, try to eat the diaper – none
of this matters. Focus your attention on presenting first the baby
smell and then the goodies.
A few hours later and in a different room, repeat the process. After
a few days, what you’ll get from this is a conditioned emotional
response to the smell of babies. Babies mean good things for dogs (as
opposed to being ignored, banished or yelled at “Get the dog away from
the baby”).
When your dog first meets your baby – the first impression is very
important – let him investigate a bit, then ask for a Down (you’ll have
trained this), and then reward him with one of the goodie-bag treats
(the roast chicken). You can practise this same procedure using a doll
held in your arms or, if you can get one, an actual baby.
Obedience prep
If you have the time, I highly recommend signing up for an obedience
course, even if your dog seems pretty well behaved. It’ll strengthen
your understanding of how he learns and sharpen important things like
Sit, Don’t jump, Walk nicely on leash and Down. An even better option
would be to hire a private trainer for a few sessions to build a solid
Go-to-your-mat down-stay, which is the king of all dog-management
behaviours. Once the dog reliably targets the mat and settles down
there, the mat can be transferred from the baby’s room when you’re
nursing or attending to her, to the living room if that’s where
everybody is hanging out, or to anywhere you’d like the dog included
but not all over the baby.
If you want to have a bash at training it on your own, peruse the training books and DVDs available at www.dogwise.com.
If you train 10 minutes or so a day, it’ll take you on the order of a
month to teach your dog to target his mat and stay there. One crafty
technique to extend the duration of his stay is to give him a chew item
(a bully stick, for example) and let him chew away provided he stays on
the mat. If he leaves the mat, he loses the chewie. In a few
repetitions, your dog will learn that the mat is a chewing oasis.
Practise sending him to the mat whenever you sit in a chair with the
doll. With enough reps, he’ll automatically target the mat and wait for
his chew toy as soon as you start cradling the doll.
It’s also a great idea to crate-train your dog if you’ve not already
done so. By this I mean training him to like being in his crate for
gradually longer durations. Which brings us to management and support.
It takes a village
Among the circus of acquisitions (car seats, strollers, furniture,
toys, gear, gear, gear) tack on a serious supply of chew items, and a
dog walker for those days when you need a tired dog but cannot create
this yourself for want of time. Find out what your dog likes to chew
and stock up. Here’s an equation for you: chewie plus crate = contented
dog out from underfoot. Here’s another: dog walker three times a week =
much calmer dog in house.
If you have dog-friendly friends, develop a contract with them,
something like “If you’ll take my dog for an afternoon or a day when my
hair is standing on end and I need one less thing on my plate, I will…”
and figure out a barter that would make it worth their while.
Knowing there are safety valves like crate time, your dog walker and
a friend or two (or three) who will rescue you on those days when you
feel overwhelmed can make a huge difference. It’s not good for anybody
– you, the dog or the baby – for you to be overextended, especially
chronically.
Finally, if your time is stretched but your budget allows for it, I
suggest you find a dog groomer and have your dog done every month or
two. A common concern among parents is the inevitable dirt, hair and
dander that comes with owning a dog. While it can’t be eliminated (and
research shows, in terms of your baby’s likelihood of developing
allergies, it’s advantageous to be raised with a dog, so you wouldn’t
want to eliminate it anyway), it can be mitigated with regular
grooming. Trainers are fond of saying “A trained dog is an included
dog.” Let’s add “A clean dog is an included dog.”
By Jean Donaldson
Canadian Jean Donaldson is the founder of the San Francisco SPCA Academy for Dog Trainers. Her books include The Culture Clash, Dogs Are From Neptune and MINE! A Guide to Resource Guarding in Dogs.
(Originally appeared in our November 2008 issue)

First off...CONGRATULATIONS! Speaking from personal experiences, our pugs have adjusted well to the new additions in our family. We have an almost two year old and a three month old. When we brought Peyton home (the two year old) we did a lot of prep work to make sure the pugs knew what was going on. We set up all the baby stuff (swing, bouncy seat, pack n play) and turned things on and got the pugs use to the motions and sounds. We also kept their stuff the same. They kept their beds in each room and we didn't disrupt their routines. They got fed at the same time and were allowed on the furniture as always. They stayed at my in-laws (nothing new, they love it there) while we were in the hospital and for a few days after since I had a c-section and needed the extra quiet time. MIL brought a blanket home that smelled like the baby and they slept with in their bed there. When people came to visit the new baby, we made sure they greeted the pugs first with small treats before seeing the baby.

When we brought kiddo number two home, we didn't do as much prep work. They didn't care. It took about a half an hour before they realized there was another kid in the room. Mr. B licked Brinley to death and Gidget didn't even look twice at her! LOL.

Now Mr. B and Peyton are good friends and Gidget likes her enough when there is food around. Gidget is a fantastic pug, but she doesn't have the same bond as Mr. B does with her. I think because Mr. B is my heart pug, he feels closer to the babies? I dunno...just my though.

We really had no problems with the babies and pugs. I think because we never pushed them away and everyone who knows us and the pugs know that they are important and loved them whenever they came over.

We pretty much did everything that Cindi did. And I don't know if this helped or not, but while I was pregnant, the pugs were always snoring, barking, snuggling up against the belly. Logan was very used to our loud house before he was even born! And we kept the house loud after Logan was born. That's much easier than trying to get the pugs to respect a quiet house.

Anyway, I think Cindi is absolutely right about keeping the pugs on their same schedule after the baby as much as possible. They still got fed at the same time and got their morning and evening walks every night. It's easier said than done but I think that helped so much. Second, we let the pugs get as close to Logan as we thought was safe from Day 1. The pugs have great instinct. They ignored him a lot when he was a newborn and they were really really gentle with him. As Logan got older, the pugs were willing to get closer to him. And now that he's a crazy toddler, the pugs know when to head for the hills.

The pugs stayed at daycare for a couple of days before Logan came home. Karl dropped off one of Logan's infant hats at daycare before they came home so they smelled Logan for over a day before they actually met him.

It was a little hard on me for a while because I lost my husband to the pugs at the very beginning. He took care of the pugs full-time so I could take care of Logan full-time. But it all worked out for the best.

oOH how exciting! COngrats!!

I don't have human children yet, but my sister in law has a 5,3,and 1 year old and a pug and they do adjust very quickly. they are loving and understandble it seems with new additions to the family. I would just make sure to give the pug lots of love and attention as well so it doesn't feel lonely and left out or 2nd best.

good luck!