In this Facebook Live, I discuss a horrible tragedy that I heard about in the news. I recorded this commentary because I am an educator – and this is a teachable moment. I want to prevent accidents like this from happening to sleeping babies again in the future, and want to demonstrate compassion for how hard it is to parent dogs and babies at the same time.
You’ll notice some settings on the video. Depending on how you best learn, you can either watch the video directly or you can download the audio file so that you can listen on the go. You can also download the transcript, but I have already included that here, below. (Please forgive the grammar – this transcript comes from me talking in the live video.)
Commentary – FB Live
Video Transcript
Hello everybody. This is Michelle with Pooch Parenting, and tragedy actually brings me here today to talk to all of you. So as you know, my professional specialty as a dog trainer is to help families who have children and dogs. So while I also work a lot with regular families who are regular couples or people who just get a new puppy, there’s a lot that we can do there.
But my true passion is in helping families. And that arises from the fact that I’m a trained teacher. I am also a mother and I’m a certified professional dog trainer. So helping families with kids and dogs is what I am really passionate about. And that’s what I’ve chosen to specialize in with my business. And so this morning, yesterday, actually, when I heard about a tragedy that happened over the weekend, I knew that I needed to come on and talk to all of you because there are a lot of misconceptions and there are a lot of thoughts and judgments that people make when they hear about something like this. And I want to talk to you about it from my perspective.
Dog and Baby in the same room at night
So let me give you a little summary of what happened. I read an article that was shared with me. I did not go searching the internet, looking for extra articles about it, but I did read one article and that’s really all I needed to read. So what happened was is there is a family. They had a two month old baby who was sleeping next to the parent’s bed in a swing in the bedroom and the family’s German shepherd injured and ultimately killed the baby during the night. They woke up when they heard a commotion, the mom called the police. The dad took the dog into the backyard and shot it. So this was a tragedy on a hundred different fronts, on a hundred different accounts. I feel horrible for the parents. They have had to endure a loss that’s unimaginable.
I think that it’s really common for people to judge and blame the parents. And it, this was an absolutely avoidable accident and an avoidable tragedy, and it should not have happened, but here’s the thing: You don’t know what you don’t know. The fact that you are connected to me demonstrates that you are thoughtful and you’re proactive and you want to do better. And I give huge kudos to you for that. But there are a lot of people who don’t know that help, like what I offer exists. And they just think that kids and dogs are fine. They’ve been fine for generations. Nothing’s going to happen. Or they think my dog was my first baby. My dog would never do anything. You know, my dogs wonderful. My dogs, my love the dog is the love of my life and would never do anything to hurt me or my child or anybody who I care about.
Misconceptions about dogs and babies
And in fact, we were having a conversation in one in my Facebook group called parenting kids and dogs. And, and somebody literally made a comment that said, “your dog will pick up on the love you have for the baby and will therefore behave appropriately.” So there’s a lot of misconceptions out there. That’s simply not true. Dogs are animals. They’re not mind readers. They’re not people. Dogs are animals and they have a lot of teeth. And if for some reason something happens, they will use those teeth. It is our job as adult responsible humans, as parents to prevent accidents like this from happening, it is absolutely our responsibility. It is not the dog’s responsibility to make this choice. It shouldn’t even be something that’s possible. Okay. This shouldn’t have even been possible.
But I want to go back to the parents and what the parents are going through. And I want to talk for a second about compassion. And I’m really, really sad that this happened and I’m furious that it happened, but I am not going to pile on guilt to these poor people. Even though it was avoidable, they were probably suffering from lack of sleep. It’s possible that a two month old baby was in a phase of its life where it had colic or had reflux and by sleeping in the swing, (which I’m not going to say whether that’s safe or not. I I’m going to interview a sleep expert about the safety of that. So I’m going to leave that to the pros), but these parents were probably so desperate and so tired, unless you are a parent, you do not fully understand the actual pain that you can feel from being so overwhelmingly tired that you feel like you would do anything just to get a few hours of sleep.
And it’s possible that they were feeling that and they were experiencing that. And that’s why the baby was in a swing. But despite their reasons, what we can’t ignore is the fact that the dog should not have been loose in that room in the first place. So again, you’re all here because you care about this.
Avoid accidents by getting support
You want to do better. You want to be better. You want to avoid accidents like that. And I love you for that. We, we need to get the word out that support like this exists. I devote my time and energy into helping families avoid situations like this. I’ve got a membership which opens a couple of times a year and that’s ongoing support.
It’s one part support group and constant support over the developmental changes of your child and your dog. And it’s one part dog training. Because again, there are constant changes that happen with your dog as you’re growing your family. So maybe your dog dashes through the door, maybe your dog now barks and interrupts nap time. Again, this goes back to sleep, right? We can’t have our dog driving us crazy. Maybe our dog embarrasses us in public. And we have all this guilt over the fact that we’re not parenting our dog the way that we used to. So my membership, which you can get information and get on the wait list at www.safekidsanddogs.com.
My members can speak to my skills as a compassionate and passionate trainer who wants your family to thrive together. I want you guys to love eachother. I want you to love living with your dog again, and that’s really hard to do without a parent coach on your shoulder. I mean, I’m right there. I’m there. I answer questions all the time. We are an amazing support group.
Where should babies and dogs sleep?
Okay. I want to address options for families with, in terms of sleep for the dog. There are people who believe that because the dog has slept in their room up until the point when the baby’s about to be born, that the dog should remain in their bedroom. And if that’s the case and you really, really want your dog in your bedroom, fine, keep your dog in your bedroom. But then the baby cannot sleep in your bedroom. The baby needs to sleep in another room with the door closed, because if you are asleep, you’re not watching. You’re not supervising. Just being in the same room is not good enough.
And I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve gotten phone calls and urgent emails from people saying, “I wish I knew about you sooner, my dog bit, the baby. And I saw the whole thing happen”. But if you were in the other room, you couldn’t have seen the whole thing happened. And even if you are right there, you can intervene before the dog feels the need to bite the baby.
Get help before baby even comes home
And for those of you that are proactive enough to be here before your baby’s even born, God, I’m so proud of you, but there’s a lot to be done. And you need a coach. You need a dog trainer to guide you. I’ve got some free blog posts on www.poochparenting.net. Another good resource is this one: Dog Training Goals Before Baby: https://poochparenting.net/dog-training-goals-before-baby/ Go ahead and get that.
But if you don’t know how to actually train those behaviors, then you need me, or you need more support from a professional trainer somewhere who can help you get there. Okay? So there’s a lot to be done. And there’s a lot more than just introducing your dog and baby when they come home from the hospital. And then because that went well, then now you’re in the clear because that’s absolutely not the case. That’s not true. It’s not that simple. This is a daily, hourly, monthly, yearly commitment that you are making to your child and to your dog. You’re telling your dog, I love you enough that I’m not going to let you make a mistake. That is life-threatening either to my child or to the dog itself.
Prevent life-threatening mistakes
When a dog makes a mistake like a simple nip, getting into the garbage, eating something that it shouldn’t eat, those are annoying events, but are not likely life-threatening events. Now, if the dog does something actually damaging to a human, there’s a very good chance that dog will be euthanized or turned into a shelter, which could result in any number of things. My goal is to keep dogs feeling safe in their homes and out of shelters. Or, I can help families make the difficult decision to rehome a dog to a family with a less stressful environment. That’s what I want to help people do. And I’m going to do it with my whole heart. I’m going to help you.
I’m not going to judge you. And I’m really frustrated that this happened to these parents. And I’m a part of me was really mad at the parents for not knowing, but it’s not their fault that they didn’t know because you don’t know what you don’t know. And so that’s why we need to help people understand the stakes. Now here’s the thing, and this is what I want.
Normalizing dog-baby education
I want this to be normal. Okay? You go get prenatal care. That’s normal. You get your teeth cleaned. That’s normal. You get your kids vaccinated. That’s normal. You take your puppy for a well puppy visit. That’s normal. You even sign your kid up for swim lessons because you want to make sure that they don’t drown. That’s normal, but what should also be normal is working with somebody like me, because if I can prevent literally a life and death situation, wouldn’t it be worth an $85 consult. Yeah, I think so. It’s a lot cheaper than an ER visit. And I can do a lot in an hour with you and I can do a lot more in my membership. I can do so much more in my membership. You will have a dog you love living with again.
Okay. When I remembered, I want to talk about sleep. So I have an interview lined up with a sleep specialist and we’re going to talk about safe sleep. I want to know the science has changed since my kids were little. And there’s a lot that I don’t know anymore. And I’m going to talk to her about safe, sleeping.
- Is it safe to co-sleep?
- Is it safe for your kid to be in a swing?
- Is it safe for any number of things for your kid to be in its own room?
And if you have questions about safe sleep for you too, by the way, because without enough sleep, you’re useless as a parent because it literally just hurts to exist when you’re so painfully tired. And I know that because I’m a mom, there are a lot of dog trainers that are moms, but a ton of them are not. And the advice you’re going to get, and the compassion you’re going to get from them is going to probably be a little bit different.
Resources for Parents with dogs
Let me share what Gwen says here. I think that’s really important when doctors or hospitals should ask about dogs and look for resources to share. I absolutely agree. I think that every OB GYN and every pediatrician should give out information about how to reduct body language, how to keep your kids safe at the very least to give a recommendation for some pens and Gates, which I have. I have recommendations for all that stuff. I have printable guides that I can give you guys these, those are band-aid solutions. There’s a lot more to parenting kids and dogs and keeping babies safe than baby Gates. But I’m telling you, those are absolute life savers because you have to be able to pee. You have to be able to make dinner. You have to be able to deal with the mountain of laundry. That’s going to happen when you’re the parent of kids and dogs and you can’t have your eyes on everybody a hundred percent of the time. It’s absolutely impossible. So what are you doing? Right? So again, working with somebody like me can help you come up with a plan so that you can literally just get through the day.
Can Dog Sleep in Your Room?
Where should the dog sleep? How you should get them used to it when you should start that routine. Right? I do think, yes, your dog could sleep in your room with you, but how are you going to do that? Well, you can put a pen around the dog bed for one, I would actually be much more comfortable with two layers of protection, a pen around a pen with a gap in between or, or even using baby Gates and other things in combination.
I mean, there’s a variety of things that you can do. If your dog is crate trained, your dog can sleep in your bedroom. Absolutely. As long as they don’t typically try to break out of your crate, right? But having doors and barriers in place is crucial to keeping everybody safe.
And I don’t want to see accidents like this keep happening over and over again. These poor parents were probably sleep deprived. They were tired. And the ultimate tragedy happened because they were not supervising. I don’t know anything about this dog. The article said that the dog had been well-trained and had never had a problem in the past.
So you need to understand that dogs often are triggered by things that we may or may not understand. I don’t know if the swing was in motion or if the swing was still, I don’t know if the baby startled during sleep as young babies do, but all of those kinds of quick motions can trigger the prey. Predator, prey, instinct in dogs. I don’t know that that’s what happened there. I don’t know because I wasn’t there and I’m not going to offer too much conjecture except that we should probably use this as a cautionary tale, that they had no reason to suspect something bad would happen. And it did. And they paid the ultimate price. They lost the two loves of their lives because they took a chance and it’s not worth taking a chance.
Help exists for dog parents with babies
And so I think it’s our responsibility to let people know that help exists and that people should get it while they’re pregnant or in the process of adopting a baby before the baby even gets home.
And if you haven’t done that kind of preparation, I don’t want you to think it’s a lost cause. It’s absolutely not. But you can be very intentional and get to work on training immediately because this is a life and death issue. So I’m sorry to talk about something so sad and so tragic, but there are no excuse uses. Ignorance can get you so far, but you need to do better. If you’re going to raise a human and grow it up into a successful adult, you have to do better. And I would be happy to help you do that. Ultimately, when I do release my guest interview with the sleep safe sleep educator, it will take place most likely in my free Facebook group. And I’m going to also share it in my membership, but my free Facebook group is called parenting kids and dogs. Please fill out the membership questions if you’d like to join. And I, I will probably release the whole interview in that group. If you’re a dog trainer, that group is not for dog trainers, it’s for parents. But if you want to see it because you want to coach your clients, please send me a message and I’ll make sure that you have access to watching that interview because I think we need to spread the word as much as possible.
Who to Trust with Dog & Baby Information?
So I thank you for listening. I hope this wasn’t too preachy. I have a lot of feelings about it. I have a lot of compassion for those parents and so much sadness for them and for the dog, the dog was set up to fail and that poor baby paid the price. So I’m really, really upset.
Actually. I see this happen even in my group, although my group tends to give good information. A lot of the time when you have the blind leading the blind, it’s really important that whoever is running those groups is actually subject area expert and can step in and moderate those kinds of things. I did ultimately close the comment thread on the post that was talking about this thing. I woke up in the morning and there were a ton of comments that were kind of weird and inappropriate. So that’s why we have been talking about and how avoidable it is and what people can do to prevent accidents like that. Parenting kids and dogs is my professional specialty. So you can trust the information that I share with you about safety here.
I would strongly encourage you guys to get on the waiting list for my membership, if that’s something that you are interested in.(www.safekidsanddogs.com). There’s absolutely no reason that you need to parent your kids and dogs in a vacuum. When you have somebody like me, who can help you along the way, we’ve really focused a lot on problems that are very specific to families who have kids and dogs. And I bring in guest experts a lot, even for fun and family activities. I’d be honored to help you. And if I can prevent even one bite, prevent one dog from going to the shelter or being euthanized, then I, it will have been worth it. So I love you guys.
I really do appreciate that you are here and that you want to do better, because ultimately when you know better, you do better. All right. Take care.
