Text: Mandy Collins. Photography: Gallo Images/Getty Images. Article from the May 2014 issue from Living and Loving Magazine.
Before you bring your brand-new baby home from hospital, you need to prepare your furry friends for the new arrival.
Bringing a new baby home is bewildering. You leave the hospital knowing that there will be no nursing sisters to help you when you can’t get the baby to feed, burp or sleep.
It’s bad enough if you’re returning to an empty home. But if you’re going home to introduce your baby to your pets, you could be in for a much more stressful situation than you anticipated.
Barking up the right tree
Animal behaviourist Julia Davies-Carter says that you have to prepare your dogs or cats for the day they ‘meet’ their new housemate. “I recommend that people start preparing their pets about six months before the baby’s arrival,” she says.
Davies-Carter advises that you talk to you partner about what the basic principles or rules will be. “Will the dogs or cats be allowed in the baby’s room? If they currently sleep in your room, will they have to move elsewhere? And if so, where – the kitchen? Outside? There’s a lot to consider,” she points out.
Kathy Clayton, chair of Animal Behaviour Consultants of South Africa, agrees. “We see this a lot. People get married and get pets, and then they fall pregnant. The dogs – or cats – have been everything up until that point, but as soon as the baby arrives, the animals are sidelined. People have to start planning what will happen to their pets as soon as they fall pregnant,” she notes.
Both behaviourists say they see many cases where couples have failed to consider their pets, and then they can’t understand why their animals start having behavioural problems. When you haven’t prepared your pets, you come home stressed out by the fact that you have to care for a brand-new baby, “and all of a sudden, the dogs are being kicked out of the house,” says Davies-Carter. “The animals don’t understand what’s going on or how or why it happened. But with a bit of preparation you can make it almost seamless,” says Clayton.
She advises not to make too many changes all at once. “The changes have to happen incrementally, long before the the baby arrives,” she points out.
‘There’s no reason why pets shouldn’t continue to sleep in their own beds in the bedroom if they’ve been doing this all along.’ – Animal behaviourist, Cathy Clayton
A smooth transition
“When you’re getting the baby’s room ready, decide whether the dog will be allowed in or out of the room, and start training it accordingly. Again, I see no harm in the dog being allowed to lie in the room when the baby is being fed or changed – that way it doesn’t feel excluded,” she adds.
“Mom needs to behave as if the baby is already there for quite some time beforehand,” she adds.
“Put a baby gate in front of the baby’s room, for example, and keep the cats and dogs off the baby’s furniture long in advance. Don’t allow the bad habits to start.
“And think about things like prams – they can be very unsettling to your animals. Will the dog chase the pram or wee on it? Many dogs are freaked out by wheels, so you need to think these things through,” says Clayton.
Set clear boundaries
Clayton also suggests that it might be worth investing in a playpen for your baby and putting it up weeks before your newborn comes home, or is even old enough to play in it. That helps to demarcate a baby-only space. Remember, there will be times when you need to put the baby down for a second while you answer the door or go to the bathroom.
And if the dogs are allowed indoors, training them to sleep on their bed when the baby’s on the floor is a good idea too. Long before the baby arrives, teach the dog that its place is in its basket while you’re in the living room. If you send your dog to its bed, it should be able lie down calmly and remain there.
Ease into things
You won’t shout your animals into submission, Davies-Carter stresses. “Shouting at your animals just makes them think you’re mental, frankly. And they might slink away and look guilty, but they aren’t – they do that to make you stop yelling. If your dog is being aggressive, weeing on the floor or just becoming silly, that’s a coping mechanism.
“When dogs are stressed, they respond with fight, flight, fooling around or freezing. You’re aiming for a dog that’s calm, happy and relaxed. So shouting won’t work. You need to respond in a calm voice with a nice treat for good behaviour and keep yourself together,” Davies-Carter explains.
Clayton suggests that you get the dogs used to the pram by pushing it around the house regularly. “You can even get a doll and start doing all the things with the doll that you’ll be doing with the baby,” she says. “Watch TV with it, push it around the house in the pram, put it on a blanket on the floor and keep the dog off the blanket. And if you’re going to be walking the dog with the baby, teach it to walk with the pram now. You can even get a recording of a baby crying and play it over and over again so your dogs can get used to it,” she adds.
Then, when you’re in hospital, send some of the baby’s clothes home every day for the dogs to sniff, so they can get used to what the baby smells like.
The human invasion
If you haven’t prepared and your baby is about to be born, what then? “If you haven’t done the preparation, then you need to manage your animals and really lower your expectations of them,” says Davies-Carter. “You need to help them to be as positively behaved as possible.
“So, when visitors arrive, put your dog in a safe, fenced-off area to stop it from flattening everybody, and give it appropriate chewies to keep it occupied. And remember that the angrier you get, the worse the situation will be,” she explains.
Either way, when you get home from the hospital, it’s wise to leave the baby with someone else and go in to say a quiet, calm hello to your pets. Everyone needs to stay calm and composed. “If the dogs are being wild, put them outside and bring them in on a lead to meet the baby, with snacks placed around the pram,” Davies-Carter suggests.
“Don’t let the dogs lick the baby – you don’t want to encourage behaviour now that you don’t want later. And let the dogs be around the baby in minor increments. If the dogs are wonderful, then they can stay longer,” she elaborates.
She also says it can be handy to have a water spray bottle to distract your dogs, but she emphasises that this is not a punishment. You simply spray a bit of water on its body sometimes as a distraction – it makes the dog wonder why it’s raining inside and can distract it from unacceptable behaviour.
“If you have a dog with a behavioural problem, it’s worth getting a behaviourist in to help you to get things to a manageable level. Dogs are highly adaptable, and 99% of them will adjust well with a bit of work,” she notes.
Pet Notes
- Dogs love to eat human faeces, and disposable nappies are toxic, so dirty nappies must be kept out of dogs’ reach completely. Davies-Carter says many dogs die because they eat nappies, or at least run up unnecessary vet bills.
- Clayton says cats need to be discouraged from sleeping in the pram. She suggests putting a net over the cot from the first day you set it up so they learn not to lie there.
- Clayton also points out that your animals need to get used to the fact that their humans no longer have the same amount of time for them. Gradually, pull back on the attention you give them.
- Finally, Davies-Carter says that if your cats are urinating on everything or your dogs are licking barking and chewing more than usual, that’s a sign that they are stressed, and behavioural intervention may be required.
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