Tag: dog

I had Maverick before I had babies. He was my sidekick, my shadow, my best friend. A Malinois/shepherd mix with more personality than most people I knew. He went everywhere with me. He was also reactive and scared of kids, which, when I found out I was pregnant with my oldest, gave me more than a few sleepless nights that had nothing to do with morning sickness.

Everyone told me I would love him less once the baby came. They were wrong. I just loved him differently. I loved him as my dog. And for a dog trainer who had built her entire identity around her animals…that distinction meant everything.

But love doesn’t solve logistics. Life had to change. Maverick couldn’t just wander into the baby’s space anymore. He had to learn that certain areas were off limits, that he couldn’t go where he wanted, when he wanted. That part we managed.

What I hadn’t anticipated was that it wouldn’t be a one-time adjustment. Babies don’t stay babies. They become crawlers. And that…changed everything.
I thought we had it figured out. Maverick had a place bed in the corner of the room, his spot when the baby was around. He was well trained, solid, and I was always present. Always. I thought we were past the hard part.

Then my oldest started to crawl. I’ll call her Baby Bumblebee here, Bee for short.
I was watching when it happened. She moved toward him and he jumped up, startled, and he was against the wall. Nowhere to go. He didn’t do anything. He was several feet from her and I didn’t let her get any closer. But I saw the look on his face…
Every dog trainer knows that look. It’s not aggression. It’s not a warning. It’s something quieter and more important. A dog telling you he’s out of options. And a dog who is out of options is a dog in a situation that can go wrong.

He hadn’t done anything wrong. Neither had she. But in that moment I realized I had set him up without an exit…and that was on me.

This is where most people go wrong. They focus entirely on keeping the dog away from the baby. But what happens when the baby starts coming toward the dog? Your dog needs to know how to create space for himself, because he will need to.

For Maverick, the solution was a baby gate he could jump. If he needed space, he took it. He learned that he had options, and that made all the difference. Not every dog can clear a baby gate, but every family should be thinking about this. A crate with the door open, a specific room, a step he can jump to. Somewhere that is his, that he can get to on his own when the world gets to be too much.

And here is the part that matters just as much as the space itself. The kids are not allowed there. Not ever. Not even to visit, not even supervised. If Maverick jumped that gate, that was his signal that he needed to be left alone…and we respected it.

For us that looked different at different stages. In the early days it was the baby gate he could jump. Later it became a mat on the floor around his crate…a physical boundary that meant something. From day one the kids learned that mat was Maverick’s. You do not go there. Period.

I know what you’re thinking. Moms are tired. Moms are distracted. We are running on fumes and there are a thousand things demanding our attention at once. I lived that too. But this was non negotiable. I was as consistent with the kids about that boundary as I was with Maverick about his training. Because a safe space only works if it is actually safe. The moment a toddler follows the dog into his space, you have taken away the one thing that was keeping everybody calm.

It wasn’t always easy. But in the long run it made everything easier.
It took time. It took patience. It took a lot of management and a lot of training. But Maverick came around.

You know what really sealed the deal? High chairs. Turns out a baby in a high chair is basically a treat delivery system…and Maverick was smart enough to figure that out. After that, the kids couldn’t get rid of him.

He lived to fifteen years old. He loved all four of my kids. He just needed a way to feel safe first.

If your dog is struggling with a new baby or a newly mobile crawler, start by asking yourself: does my dog have a way to create distance when he needs it? If the answer is no…that’s where we start.