Introducing Animals
So I’ve got a 4 year old cat and a dog at 1 year and half, both turn a year older at the end of the year. My dog is lovely, super protective and loving but she’s absolutely bonkers, she’s a really big dog (cane corso) and she thinks she’s tiny so she jumps a lot. Has anyone else have a dog like that and calmed right down once baby is here? My cat on the other hand, she’s been around since Covid so she wasn’t socialised at all up until lockdown was lifted and she doesn’t like new people, she cannot stand new people sometimes (almost as if she’s got a judge of character of someone) but she’s making me nervous at the thought of a baby around. I don’t want to jump the boat and get rid of her because she was here first and I’m hoping after a while she’ll get used to the new one around when she’s here.. has anyone else had anything similar happen?
Any advice would be much appreciated. I’ve been playing baby crying sounds from the start of pregnancy and letting them sniff baby’s clothes before they got washed. Any techniques that people have used that helped?
Sorry for the long post
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We have three cats and they were all absolutely fine with our daughter. Two were a year old, and one was about 5-6. The girl cat absolutely loves our daughter and behaved as if she also felt a responsibility to mother her! The two boys didn't like to be in the same room as her until she was nearly 3!
I’ve got two cats and I’m excited to see how they will react. I’ve had family visit and stay with including my baby nephew and we just observed my cat with him. My cats are boys, and at the time I only had one cat who was just curious and sniffed the baby car seat and baby clothes. He wouldn’t go near the baby other than to sniff and then he would keep a distance. We just made sure to never leave the baby unsupervised with cats. Once we did for just a few mins, I rushed to check on baby and it was the cutest thing ever: my cat was sat in front of baby nephew in a protective stance just laying in front of him and this was when my nephew was 3 months old. It was the cutest thing ever but we did make sure to keep an eye on them just to be on the safe side. I don’t think cats would attack unprovoked, they tend to keep their distance after having a sniff and like to observe. I think all will be okay, Normal to be nervous about the change. I feel bad for my cats atm because I’m so tired…
… I don’t have any energy to play with them but I will make some time tomorrow hopefully. Gotta have things balanced, I think that’s the struggle as well.. making sure everyone in the house is happy. All the best to you xxx
I don’t worry about the cat. She moved faster than a baby. She’s fine with my toddler now and quite likes a fuss off him. She’s not social.
The dog! I have a collie. I watch the interaction between them like a hawk! I also limit it. We crate trained the dog when the baby came. Best thing we ever did. My little boy knows he doesn’t kiss or hug the dog. We don’t do this in front of the toddler either. But the dog gets plenty when he’s in bed. If I get caught doing it my little boy tells me off because “dogs can’t talk and if they don’t like it they will bite” xx
Playing baby sounds is a great thing to do! We are stroking the cat with booties which the baby will wear when they come home so they smell like the cat don’t know if it will help as it’s our first. I don’t intend on trusting animals around baby certainly overly excited ones and would introduce slowly and with great caution
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