Dog whisperings

Dear Sarah, can you help?

Our three-year-old Maltese x Bichon is a lovely pet but, we are currently having some issues with him and our 1-year-old daughter.

Scamp was not interested in the baby at first, but once she started to crawl and then walk his attitude changed, and not always in a friendly way. He has nipped her twice while she was trying to touch him.

We were busy and took our eyes off them both so we do blame ourselves. But then it happened again.

Today we think she stepped on his tail. He jumped up and growled and we called him to us. He came, but the baby followed and he started trying to bite her feet. It was all a bit scary and thankfully he is only a little fellow so we could pick them both up until he calmed down. Thankfully she didn’t care and carried on as if nothing had happened.

We are so worried that we have not trained him properly; we were so looking forward to them growing up together, but we are not sure this is going to be possible now.

Do you think we should rehome him (we really, really don’t want to because we love him) but if he is not happy and he continues to be a risk to our little girl we may have to find him a new child-free home. Please help.

This can be a very scary and concerning time for new parents AND dogs. Your new baby presented no threat when she wasn’t mobile. Scamp had become used to knowing where she was and was comfortable with that.

Now she can move around, and is obviously interested in the ‘fluffy thing’, he has growled a normal warning, to “Back off” when she got too close. The problem is, she doesn’t understand dog language, so he felt the need to tell her more firmly that he needed her to move away – he nipped at her feet.

You haven’t done anything wrong in fact you just mentioned that he came to you when he felt threatened, so you obviously have a great bond with him. The difficulty for you AND him is that you haven’t had a baby before.

He is treating your baby human like a baby dog. This goes wrong because human babies don’t speak dog and because of that she won’t learn what he wants. Add to that the difference in a human skin compared to a dog’s fur-covered body and him nipping to tell her to give him more space will hurt her and damage her skin and freak you all out.

If baby were another dog, you would hardly notice this conversation happening; putting it down to normal dog behaviour. Another dog would learn to keep their distance and try different ways to show their respect until Scamp was ready to interact with them.

So, what can you do to teach Scamp that baby is cool and fun and a positive new thing in your lives?

MOST IMPORTANTLY – Don’t leave them on their own, EVER. If he feels the need to deal with her baby actions himself, he WILL eventually make more mistakes.

(1) Have her with you at his meals times and at treat times. He will quickly look forward to her being around because it means food.