Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Think this board could use a good topic so here goes. If anyone out there has brought a new baby into their home already ruled by a Shiba Inu or two, I would love to know how it went, how it's going etc. I've read some of the classic advice already, bring something that smells like baby home first, make sure to include them in baby activities if they are behaving well, etc. But any other advice/insight would be great. I'd love to know what others have learned/experienced that would be useful to pass on. General tips, or some guidance especially with Hoshi... (read more below)

Shiba I think will do very well. She's already had to make a pretty huge adjustment when Hoshi came along, and it actually really calmed her down. He is alpha (or she lets him be) but I see very little issue with her. She is content with her alone time and she just loves people so much I don't think it will take her long to realize another human in her life is a good thing.

Hoshi should be pretty good also. At least in terms of day-to-day activities. He is content to spend hours relaxing outside and is fairly obedient so it will be easy to call him off if he is getting in the way. My main concern with him is when food/toys get to be involved. He is always a thief when it comes to stuffed animals, to the point that I feel like Baby will not be able to have any stuffed toys, otherwise Hoshi will take it and baby will cry. His other problem is he gets way too excited about food. He's not aggressive about it, just very eager. It takes him 30 seconds to gobble down his food, but I can take his food bowl away while he is eating and give it back without him throwing a fit. It's mostly treats that can be a problem. If you have a treat to give him, even if he's earned it, he can snap a little hard trying to get it from you, so we have adopted the practice of tossing him the treat and instructing guests to do the same. He knows leave-it but the urge really gets the better of him. We've been working on telling him to go easy, but it's just very challenging, and he never seems to quite get it. He doesn't mean any harm, he just gets really excited. My concern is when baby gets to the toddler stage where she may have food or a toy in her hand, Hoshi will get the wrong idea and snap for it and hurt her. I think I can keep her safely away from that situation for a while, but as soon as she starts crawling or walking, I know I'll have to keep on my toes. Any tips on getting him to be gentler around food/toys etc would be most appreciated!
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My crew includes Shiba and Hoshi the Shiba Inus; Aurora, Seneca, Murtle, Rainbow, Sunshine,Raindrop, Diggy, Gimlet, and Luna the Leopard Geckos and José the Rosy Boa.
Shiba's Dogster Page
www.dogster.com/?154312
Hoshi's Dogster Page
www.dogster.com/?197019

I second the bring something home that smeels like the baby, also let them inspect and be a part of all the baby stuff before hand - setting up the nursery, sniffing and sitting in car seats, etc. Niko used to sleep under the crib before Gwen was born - and after it was his spot - he would run to get someone if she so much as moved.

Well the baby is going to be given tons of toys, so you need to finda way to keep them safe. Maybe a "pet net" in a corner so that they are high off the round. Baby gate the doorway to the baby's room or make a dutch door if he can too easily jump the gate -ours can and it was a good thing since the gate was to keep the kids away fro mteh stairs not to keep the dogs out.

Maybe the baby's crying will upset him enough not to steal? Honnestly we just had to be all over the dogs for a while, and yes things got chewed up (you'll have so much stuff that really it will be okay), over time the dogs learned what was theirs and what was the kids. Once Gwen reached about 3 it became her problem - hey the dogs ate the hands off your Barbie because you left her on the floor in the living room. Pick up your toys and it won't happen.

I would start working on a gantle mouth now. Hide the treat in your hand and don't give it to him until he has calmed down a bit and tell him gentile. Take the treat back if he isn't. He needs to learn gentle. Niko can still get a little snippy, but he is inherently better with the kids.
I also turned my kids into treat machines (on Chelles advice) it was what got the dogs to understand that the kids ARE infact higher in the pack, and really form a bond with them.

It will be trial by fire - you can be as prepared as anyone has ever been and both baby and kids will suprse you - but ussually in a good way! My dogs - both of whom are shy, wary of strangers and not at all socialized with kids love my kids to death and do great with them.
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Alicia,Owned by 2 Shibas, Niko and Avari, 3 cats, Miss Kitty, Mr. Grobbles and Al E. Cat and 2 beautiful daughters, Gwen and Penelope

Hey Meg- I forgot to say Congrats earlier (thought I wrote that response, but it didn't show up)- HUGE congrats to you on your upcoming baby!

You are good about knowing your dogs. Most of the stuff you just figure out and work through. Your dogs are part of the family and the new routine is just that- routine. A bit stressful in the adjustment, but it falls into place.

Toys- I'm like Lisha on the toys being left out by kids and dogs chews them- too bad. Yet my kids are now older. Most of the early toys kids use are actually not stuffed. They make odd noises and were not interesting to the dogs. With that said- Tickle Me Elmo was destroyed by Kita one Christmas. She rummaged through the bags and was thrashing it around faster than I could stop her. So, mistakes happen. After that I put baby powder on the kid's stuffed toys and a dab of fish sauce on the dog stuffed toys. Dogs LOVED the fish sauce (one small drop- doesn't need to be much) smell and just naturally migrated to those toys. The baby powder was an aversive smell to them so they stayed away from those.

Taiko used to be my food grabber and can get a bit too energetic taking treats. He too will catch a treat tossed at him as a way of preserving fingers. One way others have dealt with this is using a wooden spoon as the delivery method for giving treats. No more fingers to pinch in teeth. Kids don't always remember to grab spoons though so Lisha is right about the counter training as well. From this point on he will get not treats from hands if teeth touch skin. A friend of mine keeps her hand closed and her dog must touch the back of her hand with it's nose to "ask" politely for the treat. Then she opens her palm and flat hands the treat to the dog. If he goes in too fast and snatches, hand closes fairly fast and easily and no treat is delivered. Treats never happen without the nose touch to the hand first. It's an impuse control method that requires the dog to think and interrupts the fast snatching behavior. In essence, the dog is always now working for the treat. Now, when training and trying to reinforce good behaviors, you want your dog to know he's done well so you give a treat, well, that's where your marker word or clicker comes in. Or, you can then toss the treats since fingers aren't involved. There should already be a delay to the treat built in so adding this polite step should not be too much of an issue. Once the dog is really being gentle, you can try to fade the nose touch. It takes time though with a chow hound.

One word of caution using this method with a Shiba- they do get a bit tunnel visioned to hands and may start offering the behavior unsolicited. In essence, begging and annoying begging can happen as well. I use an "all done" signal for my dogs so they know to not even bother offering a behavior. I'm not paying attention and I won't. For me, I say "all done" and show them my empty hands. "Leave it" works as well, but my dogs sometimes don't translate "leave it" to mean don't try again in 30 seconds.

Basic rule in my house- dog teeth (or human teeth for that matter) should never touch skin. I have zero tolerance for this behavior and there's no payout for it- ever. Dogs get too rough playing tug with humans- too bad. Play stops. Snatch food from anyone- it's an immediate time out for 1 minute. No fighting to get there, just a simple body block and "go to your crate" is all that's necessary. I don't have mine trained to a mat, but that's an even better faster, tool.

Shiba 500s were my most difficult behavior to deal with because my dogs LOVED to do them and with toddling kids, it's unsafe. So, the Shiba 500s got put on command. EASY to do and reinforce. One dog would show signs of getting squirrely, so I'd get child safe (playpen or my lap) and we'd all get the dogs super wound up and wild and let them at it. It would last as long as it needed to, and then be done. Kids would giggle at the wild dogs. Dogs got the energy burned off they needed to. Win/win. To this day the kids absolutely love making the dogs run wild.
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Chelle and the rest of the crew including, but not limited to Kita and Taiko (the shiba inu wrestle maniacs), Adi (reserved and dignified tabby cat), and all 28 reptiles www.freewebs.com/performanceshibas

Thought it was kind of fitting as to what things may come!

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Alicia,Owned by 2 Shibas, Niko and Avari, 3 cats, Miss Kitty, Mr. Grobbles and Al E. Cat and 2 beautiful daughters, Gwen and Penelope

Thanks Chelle and Lisha for your fantastic helpful advice! Lisha that video is too darned cute!!!

I am definitely going to try the nose to hand thing with Hoshi. He's just so knuckle-headed it's hard for anything to get through to him. Tossing the treat does work but training the child is another matter entirely.

I love the idea of putting fish sauce on dog toys and baby powder on kid toys. In the meantime, baby's toys will either be wooden clutch type toys (the dogs have no interest in wood things really) or like some sort of baby gym where the toys are attached to something larger.

The dogs are kind of outgrowing toys in general. They have some favorite tennis balls and tough rawhide they've never been able to destroy and that's about it. Maybe she will be content with a favorite blanket or if she has a stuffed toy she wants to protect I can teach her to give it to me to put up high when she doesn't want it anymore. Or I might have to start getting Hoshi is own stuffie so satiate him. We got tired of the stuffing all over the place so we stopped getting those.
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My crew includes Shiba and Hoshi the Shiba Inus; Aurora, Seneca, Murtle, Rainbow, Sunshine,Raindrop, Diggy, Gimlet, and Luna the Leopard Geckos and José the Rosy Boa.
Shiba's Dogster Page
www.dogster.com/?154312
Hoshi's Dogster Page
www.dogster.com/?197019

It will be quite a while before the baby is old enough to play with toys or know to cry if the dog does take them. I would keep a squirt bottle or something Hoshi doesn't like around and just never let it slide until he understands the difference. My dogs caught on really quickly to this. By the time Katharine was old enough to be crawling around and playing with toys on the floor the dogs knew better. By the time Liam came along they were both desensitized to the kids completely. They guarded them, and knew they were lower in the pack than the kids.

Kids and dogs are great companions. My kids are so well adjusted around other people's animals. They are animal polite and savvy. Bringing dogs and babies up together is a wonderful experience! You will love it. I can't wait to see the pics of baby lying on the pups (or sitting).

Keep us posted, Meg!

Here are 10 million baby & dog pics (you got me all sentimental!) to show you what you have to look forward to. They are best friends (and still deeply miss Bella, who is happy with new children):

Baby # 2:

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Amanda's Pack: Greg the Husband, Kate the daughter, Liam the son, Brewster the Shiba Inu, Cassie the Torbie & Fenway the Leopard Gecko!

Oops, that last pic was just katharine...it was supposed to be a pic of her and Bella. Sorry. haha
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Amanda's Pack: Greg the Husband, Kate the daughter, Liam the son, Brewster the Shiba Inu, Cassie the Torbie & Fenway the Leopard Gecko!

Great pictures of both the kids and the dogs, Amanda! Thanks for sharing!!

Mom, how come we can't get one of those little people for our family?
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Anne, Bill, and Murphy

OMG those pics are so great! I can totally see Hoshi letting her lie on him like that. I think we are definitely going to have to implement the squirt bottle on him. I just want to be careful not to let that result in him resenting baby. Don't want him to think baby comes--now I get squirted all the time.
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My crew includes Shiba and Hoshi the Shiba Inus; Aurora, Seneca, Murtle, Rainbow, Sunshine,Raindrop, Diggy, Gimlet, and Luna the Leopard Geckos and José the Rosy Boa.
Shiba's Dogster Page
www.dogster.com/?154312
Hoshi's Dogster Page
www.dogster.com/?197019