Dog Meets Baby Blog

Does your dog steal your baby’s toys, diapers, pacifiers, or clothes? Sometimes you get lucky and your dog magically KNOWS not to touch the baby's toys. ⁠⁠But, if you’re like most, you need a strategy for keeping your baby's stuff out of your dog's mouth, and your dog out of harm's way.

Creating a safe environment.

Babies bring A LOT of new and organic smells that are exciting to your dog. Dogs are natural scavengers. Scavenging is a survival mechanism and an instinct that’s strong in most dogs. Introducing a baby to your house can potentially trigger your dog’s scavenger tendencies in new ways.

Many baby items can be stimulating for your dog, or even mistaken for food. Here’s a list of common baby items that can be uncontrollably enticing for your dog:

• dirty burp clothes
• dirty diapers
• milk/formula bottles
• pacifiers with baby slobber

My dog ate a toy, now what? 

If your dog gets, consumes, or destroys one of these things, don’t panic; it’s no different than your dog...

If I had to name the number one behavior people ask me questions about, it would be LICKING. Some of you don’t mind it at all, and some of you can’t stand it.

The chances are, your dog doesn’t just lick the baby. Oftentimes, dogs have been licking their family members for years, it is not new behavior.

With consistency, training, and management, your dog can learn it is okay to lick you and not the baby. However, it is important to understand that if this behavior has been allowed and rewarded (even unintentionally), a negative reaction from you when they try to lick the baby, may be confusing to your dog at first. 

You might be wondering, how did you unintentionally reward licking?

 Anytime you:

• Let your dog lick you
• Pet them while they lick
• Look at your dog
• Sweet-talk them
• Show any type of positive (and even negative!) attention 

It could be rewarding to your dog.

Understanding why your dog is licking is key if you want to reduce it.

Here are the most common rea...