1. Listener Questions – Hugging and Licking Baby

Summary

Welcome to the Pooch Parenting podcast, a podcast for parents with dogs. I’m Michelle stern, a certified professional dog trainer, mom, and former teacher living with kids and dogs at the same time can feel like a circus. I know because I lived it too. Join us. As we interview a variety of experts and parents to discuss topics that will make Parenting with dogs, easier, safer, and less chaotic. All so you can love living with your dog again. I’ll always keep it real, which might even mean that you hear the messiness of life in the background on occasion, but at least, you know, you’re not alone. We’ll, some of our podcast episodes, feature guest interviews on others. I answer listener questions.

If you’ve got a question about your kids and dogs, go to www.speakpipe.com/PoochParenting and record it there just like a voicemail. And I will include it in a future episode.

In today’s episode, we’re going to answer questions from Holly and Alison about their dogs and kids. Here we go.

Question about Dog Licking Baby

“Our six year old pit bull mix is always excitedly coming up to our six month old baby, trying to eagerly look his face, hands and feet. We’re wondering what this means. We try to keep him away as much as possible because we know that it’s probably not safe, but we want to know what the dog is communicating by doing this.”

• If we don’t understand how our dog is feeling, we’ll never be able to modify their behavior. In this case.
• I think your dog is really curious about your baby and honestly, babies of this age, smell and taste really delicious, maybe sweet like milk, or if your six month old baby has started testing new solid foods, then there is a fair chance that your child is a little bit messier than usual
• I would like to address a couple of options. So one option is if you’d like to send your dog away, then you can toss a treat away from the baby and say “out you go”, or you can use any other cue of your choice by using treats in this way.
• We’re making the behavior a positive experience for your dog, which is always the best training strategy for these types of interactions.
• I would encourage you to make sure that baby is being held by an adult or than an adult is sitting in between dog and baby to prevent the dog from getting too excited. Sometimes dogs get so riled up that they’ll accidentally step on the baby, or if they’re getting super into it, then they might use their teeth by accident.
• In this case, I think your dog sounds friendly and curious, but again, because I haven’t seen your dog or your baby and how they interact, I can’t say for sure on a podcast.
• I think that your dog is curious and is exploring your baby and that your baby most likely tastes delicious.
• I would just keep an eye on your dog moving forward because the baby will become mobile pretty soon. The dog is likely to get more and more curious about baby’s activities.
• We want to make sure that the dog is not using licking as a way of pushing the baby away. So some dogs will lick excessively when they’re stressed out.

Question about Hugging Dogs

“So I have a six month old golden retriever pulled Rocky and three children under the age of 10. So four, six and nine. And I know all the research and blogs and websites and things say that you shouldn’t hug your dog and your dog. Doesn’t like hugs. Rocky actually loves big hug to actually seek us out for a cuddle. He lets my kids drive themselves over to him and it’s absolutely fine. However we’ve recently seen in the last couple of weeks, whenever he initiate coming for cuddle, he will afterwards go and sit in his bed and just do a kind of slow grumbling noise. It’s not a growl, but like a grumble. And that’s obviously something that’s not acceptable. And I want to figure out why he’s doing it and get it sort of nip in the bud. Really. So any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.”

• While some dogs really love hugs, they tend to be in the minority actually. And so for the most part, many dogs will put up with it, but I’d like us to set a higher standard than that. I don’t think putting up with being hugged is really the gold bar that we want to strive towards,
• Dogs can have what we call conflict. And so if a dog like hers approaches and asks to be snuggled, but retreats and seems a little bit irritated by it, then the dog is probably having a bit of conflict where the dog really wants connection, but then the dog needs a little bit of space.
• It’s possible that the hugging just went on a little bit too long, or maybe there was a little bit too much restraint going on.
• So sometimes dogs like it when it’s their choice. And they’re the ones who initiate contact. They can come up to you, maybe put their head on your shoulder or curl up in your lap for a moment. But as soon as you start wrapping your arms around them and making it feel tight, they feel trapped and they object and they want to leave.
• So oftentimes what I like to do, if a dog initiates hugging is I can do pets. I’ll do maybe three pets, one, two, three, then I stop. And then I look at what my dog’s doing. Does my dog stay, does my dog lean in and ask for more pressure? Or does my dog get up and leave? Now, if your dog leaves, then your dog is clearly communicating to you. That that was enough. That’s all they needed.
• If it’s too much for your dog, shorten those durations of snuggle sessions and then invite the dog away so that the dog never gets to the place where he feels a little bit trapped.

I do wanna mention one other thing that Holly brought up and it wasn’t the focus of her question, but I need to mention it anyway. Or I would be remiss in my job as a dog and child specialist, which is that she said that the dog doesn’t seem to mind when her kids are draped over him. But I need again to remind you that your dog is a dog.

It’s an individual with its own feelings. It’s not a pony and it’s not a chair and it’s not a stuffed animal and stuff. And so I want you to just thinking through in advance, you know, moving forward that having your kids’ bodies on top of your dog’s body or leaning on them, sitting on them is really not the best choice. I would rather have your dog lean on you because then that was the dog’s choice, as opposed to you going and draping yourself over your dog and making them feel potentially stuck. So I hope that that helps.