Dogs and Kids Archives • Three Dogs Training

Building a safe Dog/Baby Relationship

Brody and Baby-L – How this beautiful relationship got started

In August of 2018, Jessica reached out to me regarding her dog Brody and her son (aka Baby-L).

She kept me updated over the years and has given me permission to share her story of love, safety, and success.

“When we brought Baby-L home I felt like I was drowning in fear and anxiety because of our dog, and I honestly thought I would never come out of it. Obviously, I still manage and watch them carefully, but I do feel confident and I am much more emotionally relaxed while I help them build their relationship.”
Jessica’s note from September 2020

All Three Dogs Training’s clients fill out a behavioral questionnaire. Some of the items from Jessica’s questionnaire were:

“Brody’s overexcitement/anxiety makes him very jumpy, barky, and all worked up when something out of the ordinary happens (guests, car rides, etc.).
I do not believe that my dog would hurt my baby but…

Brody had a history with a toddler in the family.

“We cannot close Brody off in his own room without him crying and barking and digging at the door (he dug a hole in the upstairs carpet …)
I want to help him learn it’s okay to be away from us and have him learn to relax away from the action. We joke that he has FOMO (fear of missing out).”

Brody’s FOMO was going to get in the way of the positive association exercises he needed.

Jessica worked on teaching Brody skills to be comfortable around Baby-L while separated by a gate or play yard, or very focused oversight.

When a dog is on the other side of a baby gate or play yard he can watch baby’s development and learn to be okay with a crawling, toddling child. It also allows us to be able to give our dog commands and rewards for being quiet and calm around the baby.

More details on this can be found in Please Don’t Bite the Baby and Please Don’t Chase the Dogs, Gates and Crates! pg 52

Skills Jessica worked on:

Watch Brody go from feeling left out to being relaxed around his toddler

Settle
- With and Without the Treat n Train
  - At first with Jessica was in the room with Brody
- Then Brody was on the other side of a
  - gate
  - play yard
- She worked short departures like going upstairs or visa versa while leaving Brody with GREAT toys (stuffed with food)
- She encouraged any calm behavior around the Baby-L

More to come…

Dog Gates and Crates

Teaching our dogs how to be happy on the other side of a gate or in their crate is pretty easy but will take a bit of attention and training.

In a crate or behind a baby gate is a lovely and secure place for dogs to spend time when you’re not at home or you can’t be watching them because you’re in the shower, taking care of a baby, or busy making dinner, just to name a few.

The techniques in the excerpt below will apply to crate and gate training equally. Whether you are crating for puppy potty and house manners, or gating so you dog can see your baby having floor time, the process will be the same.

Behind the gate or in the crate should be a safe place where your dog is not disturbed and where they can have fun with wonderful safe things like – toys, food, treats, a kong, a bone, and more. Remember if crating for puppy potty training, the size of the crate should be large enough for your pup to turn around, lie down, and stand up without crouching. More on puppy potty and manners in the Puppy 101 series.

An excerpt from:

Teaching our dogs how to be happy on the other side of a gate or in their crate is pretty easy but will take a bit of attention and training.

We begin by tossing a treat for our dog as we close the door of the baby gate (or crate) so the dog is on the other side.
Then treat him for being on the other side of the gate or crate. Take a step away, then return and treat him.
Take enough steps away so you cannot reach him and toss the treat.
Return to the gate and treat him. Then move farther away and toss the treat. Repeat this rotation of reaching out to hand them a treat and tossing him a treat from farther away. You don’t want him thinking you always have to be near the gate or crate for him to get something. He needs to never know when he might get rewarded except that it is when he is on the other side of the gate or in the crate. Once he has figured this out, you can move to the next step.
NOTE—if your dog starts to jump or bark, you should turn away, walk away, and IGNORE him—DO NOT TALK to him, DO NOT LOOK at him. As soon as he is quiet—toss the treat. Your dog will figure out quickly that quiet gets him what he wants.
If your dog will work for his kibble—great. However, if not, you will need a treat that is higher value. Please be sure to read the ingredients of the treats and look for treats that have meat as the first ingredient.
Once your dog is happily standing quietly on the other side of the gate or in the crate, then start asking the dog to settle there. Follow the settle directions from above adjusting for your being on the other side of a gate or crate.
Eventually you walk away from the gate or the crate and go do something. If you will be doing something that won’t allow you to intermittently return to the dog to treat him, or you won’t be able to toss him a treat, for example if you are taking a nap or a shower, leave him with a Kong, stuffed bone, or puzzle toy so he is happily occupied while you are otherwise engaged.
Eventually, when your dog is on the other side of a gate or in the crate, you will no longer need to interact with him because he will be content with this place and not need further assistance.
If your dog is really opposed to being alone, however, there will be some setbacks. You can always feed him his meals on the other side of the gate or in his crate while you are in another room in addition to working the above steps.

Pinball getting sleepy in his crate.

NOTE:

If your dog hurts himself in the crate you will want to try to build happy crate time following the steps above but at a much slower pace and only for occasional use. While you may not envision putting your dog in a crate regularly, there are situations in addition to management that will call for your dog to have crate time, such as: the dog is lost and taken in by Animal Control, or the dog is injured or must undergo surgery that requires them to be crate-rested for a period of time. If your dog finds himself in either of these situations and is unhappy in the crate, he will be extremely stressed and may hurt himself while crated and his crate fears will only increase. If your dog simply cannot adjust to a crate, do not force the issue.

For more tips on keeping dogs and kids safe together see:

Please Don’t Bite the Baby and Please Don’t Chase the Dogs.

Excerpts from Please Don’t Bite the Baby

Excerpts from “Please Don’t Bite the Baby, and Please Don’t Chase the Dogs,” by Lisa J Edwards on how to keep kids and dogs safe and together.

For excerpts from Please Don’t Bite the Baby, click here.

Lisa is available for dog/baby/kid consultations remotely or in-person. Click here to contact her.

Or email lisa@threedogstraining.com

dog and baby safe together — Calm dog, happy baby.

To buy Please Don’t Bite the Baby and Please Don’t Chase the Dogs, click here

Managing Dog Aggression Toward Babies

The first rule to keeping your child safe from your dog is keeping your dog safe from your child – LJ Edwards, “Please Don’t Bite the Baby…”

Question:

“How do you keep your child safe from your dog?”

Professor Boo, I have an 11 year old female German Shepherd and a 10 month old baby at home. My dog has always been friendly towards my baby girl and usually kisses her and licks her a lot. My baby is always after the dog, using her as a “ladder” to stand up, grabs her tail and face and usually my dog just walks away but today was the first time she growled at her and showed her teeth when my daughter tried to grab her (my daughter was in my dog’s sleeping area.) Does that mean she might bite her? I love my dog dearly but my baby comes first. What do I do?
Patty L.

Pinball gets to see that great rewards come when he ignores the silly toddler.

Answer:

This is common when little ones begin to toddle around and use the dog as a walking “helper.”

All dogs can bite if they feel they have no other way to stop something that either scares them or hurts them. Cute as it may be to see baby loving the dog, most dogs are not comfortable with this kind of grabbing. It can hurt your dog when a little one tugs on them especially an older dog.

It should not have to come down to a choice between the dog you love and the child you love.

To keep your child safe from your dog, always remember that your baby doesn’t know she may be hurting the dog and your dog is “please stop,” when they growl. Your job is to stop your child before your dog gets to the point where she feels the need to “correct” the baby. There are some simple rules that will help keep your child safe from your dog.

Please start out by thinking of your dog like an open pool in your back yard. You would never turn your back on your baby around an open pool. You would never let her dangle her feet in the pool without you right there, next to her. And you would always be right there to catch her if she fell, etc…

Please follow these rules:

Dog and baby are never alone together.
You are always right between them for now.
Your child can only touch the dog when you are guiding them as to how to gently touch your dog.
Your baby never wakes the dog, pokes the dog or lands on the dog when your dog is sleeping.
Your dog is never chased by baby – not with walker, not with toys and not on her own.
No dog is ever used as a walking helper for a toddler.

The first rule to keep your child safe from your dog is to keep your dog safe from your child.

In addition to the above, review of basic skills that allow parents to get their dog out of a potentially dangerous situation quickly. It is often easier to call the dog away from the child than to ask a toddler to stop advancing on a resting dog. This may mean some new or review training either individually or in a classroom. In my book “Please Don’t Bite the Baby, and Please Don’t Chase the Dogs,” I cover a number of quick techniques to get your dog out of a situation before trouble occurs.

Too many dogs are euthanized each year because they are viewed as aggressive to their toddler. Much of this can be avoided if we try to understand that for most dogs, toddlers can be scary. Most dogs try to warn the toddler away and too many parents punish the dog for the growl. This leads to a dog who feels like they have no alternative but to bite.

Always remember

When your dog growls, she has given you a great gift – she has told you she is uncomfortable with what your child is doing. Take that gift and return the favor to your dog by following the rules above and teaching or reviewing some really basic skills to keep your child safe from your dog.

Click here for more on how keep your child safe from your dog.

For more on Please Don’t Bite the Baby, and Please Don’t Chase the Dogs, click here

Odin the German Shepard Dog prepares for his family’s new baby. Good Boy!

Odin’s family took time before their new baby came home to learn how to and what to train Odin to do to keep their family happy and safe together.

Odin’s family wanted their dog to be ready for their first baby.

Odin dog preparing for his family's new baby — Odin settled near his new baby girl’s automated swing.

Odin the dog prepares for his family’s new baby by doing a settle command while the baby swing goes back and forth.

This allowed Odin to learn how to be calm around baby gizmos like this. He also prepares by learning that these items are not scary things.

It is important to see how our dogs behave around new baby gizmos before baby arrives because:

There won’t be a lot of time when baby comes home
If we wait until baby is actually in the swing or vibrating Pack-n-Play or other moving and/or sound making device, we won’t know if our dog is reacting uncomfortably because of the gizmo or the baby
And, if we know ahead of time that our dog is not as comfortable with the baby gizmos, we can desensitize

For more details on desensitizing your dog to baby gizmos see the Excerpt chapter one – ‘The Ruff Wait for Baby’ from Please Don’t Bite the Baby here.

Odin’s family took time before their new baby came home to learn how to and what to train Odin to do to keep their family happy and safe together.

For more details on how to keep your baby and dog(s) safe and happy together, see more exerpts here.

Or you can buy Please Don’t Bite the Baby, and Please Don’t Chase the Dogs.

Congratulations to Odin and his family – it is all well worth it!