On this episode, I welcome Michelle. She is a mother, certified professional dog trainer, and founder of Pooch Parenting. She helps families navigate many issues to create a healthy relationship between dogs and kids. Here are some of the questions we discuss:

• What can families do to prepare their dog for the arrival of a new baby?
• What are some of the biggest mistakes new parents make when acclimating their dog to a new baby?
• What are some worrisome signs in a dog that they may not be acclimating well to the arrival of a new baby?
• Is licking a baby okay?
• How can we teach a child to gently interact with dog?
• Where do we start with dog barking?
• How can I best prevent dog bites?

00;00;05;19 – 00;00;35;28

Dr. Mona

Hey, everyone, welcome to the PedsDocTalk podcast. I’m your host, Doctor Mona, where each week I hope to educate and inspire you in your journey through parenthood with information on your most common concerns as a parent and interviews with fellow parents and experts in the field. My hope is you leave each week feeling more educated, confident, and empowered in the decisions you make for your child.

 

00;00;36;00 – 00;00;54;18

Dr. Mona

Hello and welcome to this week’s episode. I am so excited to welcome Michelle, the founder of Poosh Parenting on Instagram. She has her own company that helps us raise amazing children, help us raise amazing dogs. I’m so excited to have her here. Welcome, Michelle.

 

00;00;54;20 – 00;00;57;13

Michelle

Hello. I’m so excited to be here.

 

00;00;57;16 – 00;01;19;02

Dr. Mona

And I. You know, I obviously have a dog. His name is Shiloh. He’s three years old. And so when I found your page, I was so excited. And when we connected, I was just so ready to talk to you all about dogs and kids. Because I’m a pediatrician. I’m a mother, so I understand children’s child behavior. I understand pediatric issues, but I know nothing about dog behavior.

 

00;01;19;04 – 00;01;51;16

Michelle

You know, it’s a crazy combination. So parenting just kids is super hard. And you know that because you comfort a lot of parents who are worried about day to day issues, sleeping, eating all the things. But then you add a dog into the mix, and it makes life even more complicated than you could have possibly imagined. You’re essentially raising two species of children all at the same time, and then taking on all of the behavior issues, the, sort of emotional dynamics between the two of them, let alone safety.

 

00;01;51;29 – 00;01;55;00

Michelle

And that’s a really big issue. Absolutely.

 

00;01;55;05 – 00;02;18;22

Dr. Mona

Yeah, absolutely. And you brought up exactly why I think it’s so important that a pediatrician and a, certified professional dog trainer need to have this conversation because of the safety component that I always see. You know, we see a lot of dog bites in pediatrics and well-meaning dogs that obviously never had that sort of behavior before. And then, you know, accidentally or, you know, a provoked or unprovoked and a dog bite.

 

00;02;18;26 – 00;02;33;09

Dr. Mona

So it’s such an important thing that we’re having this conversation so that parents know that there’s ways to train the dog. And obviously, you know, we’ll have a conversation on, you know, how we can do a whole family approach to keeping everyone happy in the family. Well, I just want.

 

00;02;33;09 – 00;02;59;07

Michelle

To compliment you, first of all, on being so open to this idea because I have talked to other pediatricians before who are much less forgiving than you are about the dog. And they I’ve even heard some pediatricians say dogs and kids just shouldn’t live together, which I find pretty dramatic because we all know that families often feel complete when they have a dog, and it’s sort of the whole fantasy of I want my dog and my kids to be best friends.

 

00;02;59;07 – 00;03;30;05

Michelle

But the problem is, unless you know how to pave that path so that you know that things are going to be done safely, it’s it’s you’re going to have hurdles, right? You’re going to have bumps in the road. And so part of it and I’ll just get this out of the way now is really understanding, you know, deeper levels of like why your dog feels the way the dog feels and why your child feels is the way your child feels, because sometimes you end up with a toddler who becomes afraid of the family dog because it’s a puppy.

 

00;03;30;05 – 00;03;53;04

Michelle

And it bites. And that’s the last thing we want to have happen. And so, as if parents didn’t have enough to add to their plate, we have to add some significant management to the situation. So that everybody feels good and feel secure and feels loved and feels looked out for, because we have not only the physical safety to think about, but also sort of the emotional safety as well.

 

00;03;53;06 – 00;04;14;26

Dr. Mona

Oh, this is so great. And, you know, Michelle is also a mother herself. She’s like I said, a certified professional dog trainer. So this conversation is going to be going over all those common questions I get asked, you know, how to introduce a dog to the baby, certain certain characteristics or certain things that kind of should make it make us concerned about the dog dog’s behavior around the child.

 

00;04;15;02 – 00;04;19;21

Dr. Mona

And so what made you start pooch parenting the company that you started?

 

00;04;19;24 – 00;04;37;11

Michelle

Well, it started. I kind of feel like things got started when I was a kid because I always wanted to be a veterinarian. And then in college, I took organic chemistry and it got the better of me. And you probably saw that happen a lot in college yourself. Going into the medical field. And I, I couldn’t cut it.

 

00;04;38;00 – 00;05;14;26

Michelle

So I ended up doing more work with dog behavior, because it was something that I truly understood and loved. I ended up becoming high school biology teacher for a while. Then I had my kids. Then I started a cooking school for children, and then I ended up back at my true love, which was dogs. And it’s really funny because I kind of compare my cooking school with kids to my work now, and the sounds really weird, but I did a lot of cooking classes for toddlers, so I would work with kids and you would appreciate this is a doctor who cares about nutrition, but we focused all on healthy and sustainable foods

 

00;05;14;26 – 00;05;36;09

Michelle

and getting the kids involved in the kitchen because it always helped them eat better. But I worked with kids and knives, honestly, right? So kids and knives are very similar to kids and puppies because puppies are sharp and pointy and you know, they can be as dangerous as a knife. And so it’s just like the perfect marriage of all the things that I’ve done.

 

00;05;36;15 – 00;05;55;27

Michelle

Plus the fact that I have children of my own. And I think that as a dog trainer, what’s really nice, is that I have the experience of loving and nurturing both ends of the leash. Right? I love people, which is why I taught for 16 years, and I’m a mom and I love kids. But of course, I love dogs.

 

00;05;55;29 – 00;06;17;18

Michelle

And so if I can help families avoid accidents which are so simple to happen at the blink of an eye, you can just have a terrible thing happen. And if I can avoid having dogs be sent to shelters or worse, be and or whatever. Then I feel like I’ve done my job right. If I can help families live safely and happily together.

 

00;06;17;18 – 00;06;37;14

Michelle

And honestly, if I can relieve just a little bit of stress and make mostly moms if we have dads listening. Hi dads. But I’m mostly I work with moms. But if I can just take some of the stress off of their plate, I guess, and, and give them some peace of mind, and I just, I feel like it’s a mission accomplished.

 

00;06;37;16 – 00;06;54;14

Dr. Mona

Well, I’m so glad we’re doing this because I need this too. I know I’m going to learn so much from you, like I said, because I know I don’t know nearly as much about dog behavior as I do about child behavior. And I, you know, you said it perfectly that when I love my Shiloh, I mean, I still love him.

 

00;06;54;14 – 00;07;14;00

Dr. Mona

But after we had Ryan, it was a turn. Meaning everything that Shiloh did was more annoying to me. He would bark and I would get so frustrated. He’s going to wake up Ryan, he’s going to do this. And then he would start Yipping or I would be so worried about Ryan, and then I wouldn’t even be kind of considering, well, what is Shiloh going through?

 

00;07;14;02 – 00;07;38;10

Michelle

And honestly, I mean, I feel like as a new mom especially, but a mom in general, we have there’s guilt right? There is mom guilt all over the place. And then if your dog was your first baby, you have more guilt because now you feel like you’re a terrible dog mom, because your human child might be taking precedent, or you feel like a terrible human mom because your dog still takes precedent.

 

00;07;38;10 – 00;07;58;23

Michelle

And like, I have one biological child and I have one adopted child. And so I feel like I have a different perspective than a lot of people do. But I can address any kind of parent because I’ve grown my family in multiple ways. But I had a lot of trouble bonding with my adopted sons for a while because, you know, I didn’t grow them in my body.

 

00;07;58;23 – 00;08;19;24

Michelle

But things are fine now. But it took time and, you know, it’s hard to give yourself grace and be patient with yourself when you’re splitting your love between the dogs and maybe your other kids and you know all the other responsibilities. And then add some extra emotional mom baggage of like, oh my God, I don’t love everybody the same.

 

00;08;19;26 – 00;08;37;20

Michelle

And it just makes it even harder to move forward. So I try to help families move forward and say, look, this is where we’re where we are today, right? This is the dog in front of you today. This isn’t the dog you dreamt you would have. This isn’t the baby you dreamt you would have. This is what you’ve got.

 

00;08;37;22 – 00;08;57;10

Michelle

Now. Let’s move forward and make yourself more confident. Let’s make you more relaxed. Let me give you some tools and some quick wins, and then some long term strategies so that we can build the relationships that you’re looking for eventually. But right now we have to be honest and we have to start with where we’re at right now.

 

00;08;57;13 – 00;09;09;05

Dr. Mona

I love this, I love the way you approach it. And I want to start at the beginning of all this in terms of what can families do to prepare their dog for the arrival of the new baby into the family?

 

00;09;09;07 – 00;09;28;14

Michelle

That’s such a good question. I actually, at the start of the pandemic, I made a digital course exactly on that topic because it is it’s something that I was asked a million times, and instead of answering it or instead of having, you know, 101 on one appointments where I tell people the same thing, I decided to make a digital course about it.

 

00;09;28;16 – 00;09;50;15

Michelle

So I it’s literally called preparing dog for a new baby. And we, we, you know, we take you through a variety of steps from, literally setting up your house from a safety and management standpoint. But also we look at your mindset because mindset is a really big deal. You can’t just hope for the best and we need to talk about that.

 

00;09;50;15 – 00;10;10;02

Michelle

That’s like a really big deal. And then we talk about training too. So we talk about the goals that I think you should have for your dog before the baby even shows up. So when people are proactive, it makes me God. It makes me so excited. I can hardly contain myself. But when I hear from people, you know, I’m 12 weeks pregnant.

 

00;10;10;02 – 00;10;26;01

Michelle

I’m 20 weeks pregnant, what can I do? I do a happy dance because they have so much time. As long as they use that time wisely to get the dog ready. Now, this is not to say that somebody who calls me and says, I’m 39 weeks pregnant, what can I do to get my dog ready for the new baby?

 

00;10;26;04 – 00;10;51;17

Michelle

Woof. That’s harder. Right? Because the baby’s coming like it could be tomorrow. It could be in two weeks. We don’t know. But that’s not a ton of time. Plus, you have your your stress hormones and you’re so busy literally nesting like it’s hard for your brain, even function about anything else. So we like to look at behavior. So one example of it of a dog training behavior that I like to think about ahead of time is where does your dog sleep?

 

00;10;51;20 – 00;11;12;25

Michelle

Now I know this may seem silly, but as a pediatrician, you probably really appreciate this question because we know that our parents, our clients, our patients sleep with their babies in any number of ways. Some people sleep with their baby on their body, some people co-sleep, some people have a side sleeper device. Some people have a crib or bassinet.

 

00;11;12;25 – 00;11;32;02

Michelle

The baby could be down the hall, right? We have every range of option and we’re not going to judge those. But what we have to do is we have to think about where is the dog? Does the dog have free access to the baby? Can the dog get up and move around in the middle of the night? Is the dog in the same bed as you are?

 

00;11;32;04 – 00;11;52;05

Michelle

Because then what if you are nursing the baby and you fall asleep and the dog is in the bed? Well, then you’re not actually supervising anybody because you’re asleep, right? Because I know that I fell asleep a bunch when I tried to feed my baby. You’re so tired. And that’s okay. That’s normal. But we have to plan ahead for those kinds of things.

 

00;11;52;08 – 00;12;17;11

Michelle

And so it’s just nice to have a coach to have somebody who says, okay, here’s what we need to think about. We also need to think about is your dog, on a rigid schedule that at 5:01 p.m., your dog is barking its head off because it’s past dinner time. Well, guess what? If you’re in the middle of a stinky diaper, you’re not going to be feeding your dog at 500 1 p.m. because literally, the biology of your child is taking precedence, right?

 

00;12;17;11 – 00;12;37;04

Michelle

If you’re feeding or whatever, bathing, whatever you need to do. So trying to get your dog to be a little bit more flexible is a really useful thing. And I can help people do those sorts of things. So these are just some of the things to think through, when you’re getting your dog ready. But I guide you through all of that in the course, which is super convenient.

 

00;12;37;07 – 00;12;58;23

Dr. Mona

We had Shiloh, for 3 or 2 and a half to two and a half years before we had Ryan, and he got really used to us. He we obviously try to, you know, set up the apartment where Shiloh was in the home. And then we brought Ryan in through the front door. Does all that matter in terms of like, how you present the dog to the baby the first time?

 

00;12;58;26 – 00;13;23;15

Michelle

Oh, yeah. You know, it can. So if your dog is big and energetic and boisterous and typically is a busy greeter, when you walk in the door, you need to consider that in advance, right? You need to think about is your dog going to keep all four paws on the floor when you come in? Because you may have been out of the house for 1 to 7 days, or however long it takes, right?

 

00;13;23;18 – 00;13;43;28

Michelle

We can never fully predict what our hospital or birthing experience is going to look like. So it’s hard to sometimes predict. And sometimes our dog dogs miss us a lot more than we might have anticipated. So I do really like to help parents set up a plan in advance, and that’s another part of the course. But to talk about how do we keep everybody safe?

 

00;13;44;04 – 00;14;08;16

Michelle

So it’s not just about keeping the newborn safe as you bring it into the house, but it’s about keeping the mom safe because she saw no matter how that baby came out of her body, she is going to probably be sore and tired. And this weird mix of stress hormones and excitement hormones and like, it’s so hard to know, like where any given parent will emotionally be in that moment.

 

00;14;09;23 – 00;14;33;25

Michelle

So we need to kind of have a plan in place. I would definitely say at the very minimum, make sure someone is having the dog on the other end of a leash. When mom and baby walk in and I actually prefer if somebody else carries the baby in so mom can say hello to the dog first and not be focused on protecting this newborn at the same time as warding off an incredibly enthusiastic dog.

 

00;14;33;27 – 00;14;44;06

Dr. Mona

Well that’s great. That’s a great tip. What are some of the biggest mistakes you see new parents make when acclimating their dog to a new baby? Besides not getting besides not thinking about it beforehand?

 

00;14;44;09 – 00;15;02;11

Michelle

That’s a really good question. Okay, I’m going to give you the tip that everybody finds on the internet, and I guarantee a lot of your listeners have done, and I don’t want them to feel bad. I don’t want them to feel like this was a mistake. It’s not really a mistake. But if it’s not done correctly, this thing I’m about to tell you is not going to achieve the purpose that you’re hoping it will.

 

00;15;02;11 – 00;15;25;26

Michelle

So the biggest tip that you will find about introducing your dog to a new baby is to bring home a blanket from the hospital, right? You’re laughing. So here’s the thing. We need to talk about why that would matter and why that would help your dog in the first place. Okay, I’m going to compare this to something really silly as a point of comparison.

 

00;15;25;26 – 00;15;50;12

Michelle

So bear with me for a second. So I have a teenage son. He doesn’t always smell very good. Okay, let’s just. Okay. If he wants to bring home some new friends for me to meet, not pandemic times like normal times. Let’s say you. I don’t ask him to bring me their socks or their t shirt ahead of time so that I can smell it first, because that’s going to automatically make me like his new friends.

 

00;15;50;15 – 00;16;16;04

Michelle

That’s not how it works. So just because I smell something doesn’t mean I’m going to like it. Okay, so let’s just get that out of the way now, if we want to improve the chances that bringing home a blanket will help the dog have a positive association with this baby, then what we do is perhaps if your partner comes home, visits from the hospital, comes home to feed the dog.

 

00;16;16;10 – 00;16;39;07

Michelle

And first of all, your partner’s going to smell like the baby, so you don’t even really need to bring home an extra item because you’re human. Smells like the baby. Anyway, assuming they were allowed to hold it. But let’s just say the partner brings home a blanket, then what you need to do is you need to actually sit with the dog, and you need to let the dog sniff the blanket and give the dog a treat, sniff the blanket, give the dog a treat.

 

00;16;39;07 – 00;16;59;21

Michelle

Right. The last thing we want to do is just leave the blanket, let the dog do what it wants with it. Because what if the dog decides it’s a toy? Let’s think that through. Yeah, because if the dog just has access to the blanket and maybe brings it to its own bed and sleeps on it, the dog could do that on the baby, right?

 

00;16;59;21 – 00;17;19;12

Michelle

The smell is the same. So we need to be very careful, and we need to set up structure from the very beginning and make sure that if we’re building an association with the blanket, the baby blanket equals good things, then we need to pair it with, you know, affection, or we need to pair it with treats or something like that.

 

00;17;19;14 – 00;17;40;04

Michelle

And then if you want the house to continue to smell like that, then maybe you tuck it up on top of a bookshelf where the dog doesn’t have access to it. When your partner goes back to the hospital or whatever, and then the dog comes up smelling it. But honestly, truth be told, the second the baby comes home from the hospital, the whole house smells like baby and there is no rush in forcing a relationship.

 

00;17;40;07 – 00;17;54;07

Michelle

Your dog will smell the baby and they have years to build a good bond, so there’s no need at all to shove a blanket in their face and hope that that solves an issue, because you might be causing more of an issue if you don’t do it carefully.

 

00;17;54;13 – 00;17;57;09

Dr. Mona

Oh, it sounds so much like an older sibling.

 

00;17;57;11 – 00;17;58;28

Michelle

Yeah, totally.

 

00;17;59;00 – 00;18;09;27

Dr. Mona

Well, I joke so much about this, and I’m not, you know, I’m not demeaning, obviously, saying that children are like dogs, but like a toddler is very similar in many ways. Toddlers to puppy.

 

00;18;09;27 – 00;18;28;24

Michelle

Oh, I compare it. My husband and I joke all the time, actually, that people give us dirty looks when we compare raising dogs to raising kids, but they they really. You need to be aware of emotions. You need to be aware of safety. You need to be aware of, all kinds of things. Right? Structure, all that stuff.

 

00;18;29;06 – 00;18;51;19

Michelle

It’s very similar. You’re totally right. I remember, when who was it? I it wasn’t me. My mom told me the story of somebody who brought home the baby, and the older sibling was like, let’s put it in the garbage can, like, you know, so there’s a lot of, jealousy and resentment that can happen. And the dog can have those same kinds of feelings.

 

00;18;51;19 – 00;19;09;09

Michelle

Right. And so you mentioned, actually, that Shiloh was louder after your baby came home, after Ryan joined your family. And part of that is because Shiloh was used to getting all of your attention. And now that was split. And so that is something that you can kind of plan for. You’re going to have people who really want to help you out.

 

00;19;09;12 – 00;19;25;01

Michelle

So in addition to having them, you know, deliver meals or order you food online and, you can ask him to walk your dog. You can ask them to give your dog extra attention, because that will kind of cushion the blow for a little while and help ease that transition further.

 

00;19;25;03 – 00;19;45;26

Dr. Mona

Does that help, to have someone else do that affection, or would you also recommend, for example, like when I had Ryan, I was spending pretty much all my time with Ryan, and Shiloh would be more quiet and more reserved with me versus my husband, because he knew that when I’m there and my husband’s at work, that he’s not going to get any attention to me.

 

00;19;46;01 – 00;19;52;24

Dr. Mona

Do you do you recommend to like the mother, to also try to give affection to the dog when she can? Or how would that.

 

00;19;52;24 – 00;20;15;12

Michelle

Yeah, I do, I mean, I do if you’re up for it, you know, if you feel capable of doing it. I mean, you just have to get through the day, frankly. And so the more you can do, the better for your relationship with your dog, but not if you’re temporary short or if you’re not patient or whatever. I do think it’s a good idea to get your dog used to being around other people, maybe before the baby comes home.

 

00;20;15;12 – 00;20;32;17

Michelle

So, for example, if you’re going to hire a dog walker, then maybe start doing that before the baby is born so the dog can get used to this change in routine that, hey, the dog walkers here. And it’s like a super exciting, amazing thing as opposed to, wait, I don’t know you. This is so weird and new and everything is different.

 

00;20;32;17 – 00;20;40;00

Michelle

And because that can cause stress, which then can manifest itself in behavior problems. So we want to try to avoid that as much as possible.

 

00;20;40;01 – 00;21;02;15

Dr. Mona

Well, I love your mistake because I did this I did exactly what you said. We’re I, we just brought the blanket home. We didn’t really associate it with any tree. And you’re right that how you explained it makes perfect sense that you need to have to you need to associate it with obviously something rewarding. Also, is there any other mistake that you see that parents make that you want to you want to squash right now?

 

00;21;02;17 – 00;21;29;23

Michelle

Oh gosh, so much pressure. No. You know what? I just if I could just have every parent realize this is a thing, I think that’s my biggest goal, is that any parent, any parent to be whether you are about to adopt a baby, whether you’re about to give birth to a baby, if you have a dog to realize, first of all, that not everything is all shiny the way Instagram might have you think, right?

 

00;21;30;01 – 00;21;49;00

Michelle

People are not posting that the dog bit the toddler. They’re not posting that they feel guilty. They’re not posting any of those things because it’s embarrassing. But it is real. And to know that there are trainers out there, I’m not the only one. They’re not very many of us. But you know, if you like me, then that’s nice.

 

00;21;50;03 – 00;22;06;16

Michelle

But to work with somebody, to just get support, to feel like you’re part of a group, to know that, you are not in the minority, you are in the majority, but that you don’t have to do it alone because you’re going to join mom groups and you’re going to talk about how many times your baby pooed.

 

00;22;06;16 – 00;22;28;10

Michelle

And, you know, my my daughter would go like a week. Oh my gosh, it yeah, it was crazy. It always happened in Ikea. And there was a big blowout. I don’t know why, but anyway, so you get support from different people for different parts of your life, right? And you have your girlfriends and you have your moms groups and things like that for maybe baby related issues.

 

00;22;28;10 – 00;22;54;01

Michelle

But you can also, you know, I have a free Facebook page called Parenting Kids and Dogs, and you could join that and just know that you’re going to get some hugs from somebody who’s been through it. Right? So you don’t have to struggle alone. And I think just the not knowing not that you can say that not knowing is a mistake, but if I could just help people know that there is support, that would that would be a good a good win, I think.

 

00;22;54;08 – 00;23;13;05

Dr. Mona

And I think if I could go back, you know, I would say I agree with you. Like I think that we knew that we needed to do something with Shiloh because of how much affection we gave him. We were very aware that we, in lack of a better word, we did spoil the dog and I. I don’t have any regrets about that because he’s our dog and he’s our family and he’s amazing.

 

00;23;13;12 – 00;23;32;28

Dr. Mona

But we knew that it was going to be. We knew it was going to be a struggle. And then we had Ryan. And obviously now I’m starting to notice little things here and there where I’m like, Shiloh, I don’t think is acclimating well. Do you see any, like, tell tale signs that maybe the dog may not be acclimating to the arrival of the baby?

 

00;23;33;03 – 00;23;39;26

Dr. Mona

You know, I know there may be a long list of things, but certain behaviors that you’re like, you know, you really need to start doing something now if you haven’t done it already.

 

00;23;39;28 – 00;24;05;01

Michelle

There are a couple things I think the most important thing is to recognize your dog’s body language, because if you can recognize how your dog might be feeling by looking at their body. So what are their ears doing? Their eyes, their mouth, their tail, their muscles in general? If you can kind of read that as if you were bilingual or even almost bilingual, you don’t have to really fully get it.

 

00;24;05;01 – 00;24;26;05

Michelle

But if you are familiar, you’re unlocking a whole world of access to knowledge, right? So if you can read your dog, then moving forward, especially once your baby becomes mobile. I know Ryan just started crawling, so you’re going to see some new behaviors that are probably problematic any second, if you haven’t already. And we’ll talk about that.

 

00;24;26;05 – 00;24;52;25

Michelle

But, you know, noticing stressful behaviors in dogs. So for example, if the dog is flicking its tongue. So let’s say, something is going on and the dog and this is not like right after it, drink water right. This is like out of the blue, the dog starts licking its tongue. That’s a sign of stress. If your dog looks away like something happens, maybe the baby screaming and your dog ever dies and looks away, that’s a sign of stress.

 

00;24;52;25 – 00;25;16;02

Michelle

So what your dog is, is doing is saying, I’m. I’m trying to distance myself. I’m. It’s a calming signal, actually. It’s like I’m not a threat. I’m not part of this problem. I just want that thing to go away. Right. So there’s a lot of really nice behaviors that dogs do like this, that, that don’t cause problems per se, but they’re very good clues that a problem could arise if you don’t address it.

 

00;25;16;02 – 00;25;39;19

Michelle

Right. Other problems that do happen that are very common is dogs who ask for attention inappropriate. So this happens a lot with my new moms who are, you know, working on breastfeeding or even bottle feeding, and then babies are getting a latch and they’re finally feeding. And then the dog comes up and pokes you with their nose for to get attention.

 

00;25;39;19 – 00;26;08;03

Michelle

And maybe your boob falls out, or maybe the bottle falls out or whatever, and you’re like, oh, oh my God. Yeah, I just have been working on this for so long. And then you get mad at your dog, and your dog is like, but I want attention. The nothing inappropriate for attention, but they’re still asking for attention. So working on that with a dog, to give them an alternate behavior, to reward a behavior that’s appropriate instead of reprimanding them for something that’s inappropriate.

 

00;26;08;03 – 00;26;33;05

Michelle

Right. It’s just like kids and toddlers. It’s right that that if my kid is walking towards a wall with a sharpie in hand and I start yelling, stop it! No, don’t do that. I’m not giving my child any information about what I want them to do. So that’s not useful. The kid is just going to freak out because you just yelled at them, but you’re not telling them anything productive whatsoever.

 

00;26;33;08 – 00;26;47;00

Michelle

So dog training is a lot like that. If we can avoid some of the stop and yell and more of the this is what I want, then the whole family is going to have a much better adjustment because there’s a lot less stress.

 

00;26;47;02 – 00;26;50;13

Dr. Mona

Have you seen any like psychosomatic symptoms like vomiting?

 

00;26;50;16 – 00;27;21;28

Michelle

I have not, no, I have seen some dogs kind of go off their food a little bit like or they’ll only eat maybe if a parent is in the room, we call those social eaters and that’s interesting. And that can cause some challenges. What else have I seen? You know, it’s more, it’s more the discomfort that the dog is going through that escalates into physical.

 

00;27;22;00 – 00;27;52;27

Michelle

I don’t want to say violence, but you know what I’m saying? Like a physical issue, an interaction that is inappropriate, that either uses the nose punching you or teeth, or even growling and growling is such an important topic to talk about because a lot of your families and your listeners, have babies that don’t sit still anymore. And the second they are no longer sitting still, the dog has an entire new adjustment to make because now nothing is.

 

00;27;52;29 – 00;28;14;15

Michelle

It’s, you know, nothing is off limits anymore. Because now the kid can take my ball, the kid can take my bone, the kid can get my food dish. So there is so much you need to do. And in fact, I don’t mean to toot my own horn, but I made a second course for this exact reason. And that one is called Parenting Toddlers and Dogs.

 

00;28;14;17 – 00;28;44;23

Michelle

And that’s for the second. Your kid is mobile, right? So this is for babies that are about Ryan’s age and onwards until they’re probably 3 or 4 years old, because there are huge developmental milestones that happen from grabbing to crawling to jumping. And these all can cause different emotional responses and physical responses in your dog. And so just sort of thinking that through and using, what kind of tools are you going to use to help prevent interactions when you can’t be watching 100%.

 

00;28;44;25 – 00;28;47;20

Michelle

And that’s another topic that we probably should talk about.

 

00;28;47;20 – 00;29;07;10

Dr. Mona

We could talk for I well, I could talk for hours about this because of how many questions I have. But I love that you’re giving like just the bread and butter, like the basic stuff because this will help. And I think your horses obviously will be super helpful for anyone to be able to kind of decide, okay, I need more help with the toddler years, or I need more help because I’m welcoming the baby and I appreciate you for that.

 

00;29;07;13 – 00;29;21;14

Dr. Mona

Do you do you think that if a dog is not interested in the baby, like just say in the first 3 or 4 months has really little interest? Not, but not necessarily like turning their head away, but just not trying to get to know the baby. Is that a worrisome sign?

 

00;29;21;16 – 00;29;41;04

Michelle

No, I love that. I actually if I could wave a magic wand, that’s how I would want all dogs to be okay. I would much rather have a dog that’s totally ambivalent, as if you brought home a new hat, right? Like this is no big deal. This is just another piece of furniture in the house. It’s a thing.

 

00;29;41;07 – 00;30;12;05

Michelle

It’s here. It’s not going anywhere. It takes up some of mom’s attention. But, you know, not being obsessed with it, not having to lick it, not having to chase it, not having to sit and look at it. Those behaviors actually alarming. Much more than a dog who just doesn’t care. That is more of a dream, honestly, because they have an entire lifetime to build a relationship and I would much prefer a dog be ambivalent to a dog that be obsessed.

 

00;30;12;09 – 00;30;28;02

Dr. Mona

Michelle, this is music to my ears because I was worried because Shiloh actually has very little interest in Ryan. And and I actually thought, and I’m happy we’re having this conversation. I told you at the beginning that I’m probably going to learn something because I kept telling my husband, why doesn’t he want to be a part of this?

 

00;30;28;02 – 00;30;39;06

Dr. Mona

Like he would go underneath the table and just sleep underneath the table when I’m with Ryan? And my husband was like, Moana. Like, that’s where he wants to be. And I’m like, but I feel bad. Like he just doesn’t want to be a part of this.

 

00;30;39;10 – 00;31;04;14

Michelle

This is the thing. So your husband is absolutely right. Tell him, good job. Michelle says, job. Here’s the thing. We talk about consent, okay? This is something I teach kids. No, your uncle doesn’t have to hug you at Thanksgiving. Same thing with dogs. They get to choose when to be near the baby or when not to be. Well, sometimes you help them choose not to be near the baby, but your dog has choice, right?

 

00;31;04;14 – 00;31;22;11

Michelle

Your dog is a creature with its own mind, its own opinions, its own feelings. And if a dog is taking itself away from the baby, gosh, that’s great news, because the dog is saying, you know what? I don’t want to deal with that creature right now. And a dog that removes itself is gold. What we don’t want. Here’s the thing.

 

00;31;22;11 – 00;31;49;07

Michelle

What we don’t want is a dog who wants to be near you so much that it puts itself in an uncomfortable position because it doesn’t want to be near the baby, but it’s near the baby because you’re near the baby, and then you have conflict. And then that’s where we get all these confusing body language. We get confusing behavior, we get, we get sometimes a dog that’s partly wagging its tail and growling at the same time.

 

00;31;49;07 – 00;32;07;16

Michelle

And parents have no idea what to do with this because it is so confusing now. It’s confusing because the dog is confused, right? But if your dog is not paying attention is disinterested, it’s that is your dog’s choice. That is, your dog’s right. And I love that your dog is capable of making that choice.

 

00;32;07;18 – 00;32;22;00

Dr. Mona

That’s money that is actually really good to hear. And I think it also comes down to what we were talking about earlier, that I just felt guilty. And it’s not shallow. It was me just feeling like this dog who used to lay on my stomach when I was pregnant and listened to Ryan’s heartbeat, was now nowhere to be found.

 

00;32;22;00 – 00;32;35;14

Dr. Mona

Like, while we’re recording this normally my my child would come into the room. He. The door’s open and he’s not in my room. He’s out in the living room, and I. That’s just hard for me because I was so connected to Shiloh before.

 

00;32;35;16 – 00;32;38;19

Michelle

I know it hurts your feelings and that’s awesome.

 

00;32;38;24 – 00;32;56;28

Dr. Mona

And I it really got. And I might actually get a little emotional. And I can’t believe I’m getting emotional about my dog, but like, he was my he was my, you know, people who don’t have dogs may not understand, but he was my first baby, and I learned so much about taking care of someone from him. You know, I get emotional talking about it because I.

 

00;32;56;28 – 00;33;23;16

Dr. Mona

If it wasn’t for Shiloh, I don’t think I would be as good of a mom because Shiloh taught me so much about taking care of someone, you know? And and so when, when, when this started to happen and he, you know, started to get, you know, more distant. And I would just feel like, well, what happened? Like I’m here or like I and I would feel guilty, like I don’t have, like you’re saying or like I don’t have enough time to, you know, take care of my baby and then also have the energy to pet Shiloh and, like, be there for Shiloh.

 

00;33;23;16 – 00;33;30;21

Dr. Mona

And that guilt is so crazy because, like, it’s there. And I don’t think people who don’t have pets understand that know.

 

00;33;30;21 – 00;33;53;29

Michelle

And they think you’re they think you’re irrational or emotional and it’s ridiculous how how insensitive people can be who don’t actually know what you’re going through. You know, one thing that might help, and this is something. I mean, you are so strapped for time between work and the podcast and raising your child and being a partner, you know, to your husband.

 

00;33;53;29 – 00;34;18;13

Michelle

I mean, there are so many pieces of your life, and, you know, I can help you. You know, we can talk more, but I can help you. You can carve out three minutes and you can do a couple tricks with Shiloh, where you start teaching Shiloh a trick or whatever that, you know, every night after Ryan’s in bed, I have five minutes, three minutes, one minute of Shiloh time where we do something we’ve never done before.

 

00;34;18;15 – 00;34;39;20

Michelle

And Shiloh will turn around a little bit. So what is happening is Shiloh is just confused. Shiloh was like, well, mom is busy and that’s fine. And I’m going to be okay over here. And I’m sure he misses you too. But when you invite him in and do something really fun with him, then he will reengage with you.

 

00;34;39;23 – 00;34;43;09

Michelle

So that’s good. It’ll. I can help you. It’s okay.

 

00;34;43;11 – 00;34;44;13

Dr. Mona

Thank. You. Know, I’m.

 

00;34;44;14 – 00;34;46;14

Michelle

Giving you because I feel like.

 

00;34;46;18 – 00;34;53;07

Dr. Mona

I can’t. I didn’t, I never thought that this episode would be the first episode I cry about. Like, on set.

 

00;34;53;07 – 00;34;54;10

Michelle

Is a badge of honor.

 

00;34;54;10 – 00;35;21;16

Dr. Mona

I think that it is. It is like I. And it’s so interesting because I talk I talk a lot to my husband about it. And recently today I was like, I think we need to do something more with Shiloh because I was just feeling like, and again, it’s just me feeling sad when he literally just, like, lays on the couch with his head in his paws and just stares at me and I, I’m happy that we’re having this conversation because it’s like, it just it actually does lift this weight off my shoulders a little bit, knowing that I don’t need to force this relationship.

 

00;35;21;23 – 00;35;33;02

Dr. Mona

And, you know, we’ll like you said, they have a whole lifetime or shiloh’s lifetime, you know, for them to be together. And I got to just let go of a lot of the expectations and let go of the guilt and it’ll work out.

 

00;35;33;09 – 00;36;03;11

Michelle

And I’m really glad you said that. And we started off the show with this concept, but I want to revisit it again and again and again is that your expectations may be different than your reality, but that isn’t a bad thing, right? Because maybe your kid is colicky and you didn’t expect that to happen. And that changes everything about how you perceive motherhood now, because maybe it’s your image is soiled, or maybe your dog has an inappropriate reaction and now your image of your dog is soiled, right?

 

00;36;03;14 – 00;36;26;01

Michelle

But the difference between expectation and reality can turn into this giant chasm. But again, we can find where you are now, and then we can take baby steps to make things better. Right? We can. We can set small goal. So, for example, I have I have a membership program and the theme this month is barking because it’s such a problem for families with kids and dogs.

 

00;36;26;04 – 00;36;44;02

Michelle

And one of my members, Karen, Karen’s dog, barks at everything. And so I’ve been asking them to kind of do an assessment. What does your dog bark at? We have to figure out the why before we can figure out how to fix it. We need to know why your dog is barking in the first place. And you said Shiloh is barking too.

 

00;36;44;04 – 00;37;08;00

Michelle

So we need to figure out the why first. And poor Karen said, Ginger barks at everything and I said, okay, what I’m going to have you do is pick one thing, and this month we’re going to work on it and you are going to see improvement. She’s like, I can’t pick one. And I said, well, you have to pick one, because otherwise you’re going to be disappointed that you don’t have any progress because you have to start somewhere.

 

00;37;08;02 – 00;37;28;13

Michelle

And so I’m going to just use that sort of, you know, analogy. You have to start somewhere. But part of it is being aware and part of it is recognizing this is where I am today. It’s not where I thought I would be, and that’s okay. And either my dog or my kid or my whole family or my husband or whatever is not acting the way I wanted them to.

 

00;37;28;15 – 00;37;33;01

Michelle

But this is where we’re at. And then let’s be honest and then let’s move forward from there.

 

00;37;33;04 – 00;37;48;22

Dr. Mona

I love the way you approach this. This is so important. And I mean, just the the mindfulness in it and obviously just the kind of organized how we’re going to get through it. It’s so needed. And I again, I appreciate this. The other question I had, obviously we will if we get time, we’ll talk about barking but is about licking.

 

00;37;48;27 – 00;38;02;28

Dr. Mona

So dogs who like to lick babies and you actually on a post that I had done like a few weeks ago, you brought up something that I was like, oh, I didn’t realize this. How do you feel about dogs licking the babies from the perspective of a dog’s behavior?

 

00;38;03;10 – 00;38;24;12

Michelle

It’s so interesting. People have the misconception. This is another good one. Back when you asked me before. Here we go, I found one. They have the misconception that licking is kissing, right? And it is sometimes. I mean, my puppy kisses me all the time. Oh, you know, sticks his tongue up my nose. It’s lovely. But licking is not always kissing.

 

00;38;24;14 – 00;38;47;05

Michelle

Which is weird because then you have to figure out context. Again, this goes back to sort of the overarching way that I do my work with my clients is we have to first think about the why, and then we can think about how to deal with it. Right. So why is this happening? What is the context I need you to be an investigator, be turn into Nancy Drew or whatever, and start to think about like, okay, what is happening?

 

00;38;47;05 – 00;39;10;10

Michelle

What is going on in the environment? Let’s look at this now. Dogs and babies are interesting. So first of all, there’s a couple things that can happen. Babies can taste really good. So if a baby tastes like milk or if your baby like Ryan, is now starting to feed himself, which is a mess, right? He’s covered in food head to toe, he’s going to appear quite delicious to Shiloh.

 

00;39;10;12 – 00;39;34;26

Michelle

Now again, you’re going to have to really know your dog and know if you want to even go there. I would sort of advise not to let your dog clean the baby from that food situation. That’s a whole nother topic. We could do. But, but the baby may be delicious, right? So if the if the dog is maybe licking one little piece of the baby because his fingers are sticky, that’s different.

 

00;39;34;29 – 00;40;03;13

Michelle

Then if the dog is obsessively licking and licking hard, some dogs really go in and they lick, lick, lick as if they’re trying to send a message to you or to the baby. And generally that message is back up. Get out of here and push you away by excessive licking. And it’s weird, but it is not affectionate kissing and this sort of goes back to the point of understanding dog body language.

 

00;40;03;13 – 00;40;24;18

Michelle

But is the dog’s body loose and wiggly and happy? You know, like you’ve all seen it. You can imagine it right now. Imagine some happy go lucky golden retriever, whose whole body, whose wagging its tail so hard that its tail is hitting itself in the face, right? That its whole body turns into a bendy shape because it’s so wiggly.

 

00;40;24;23 – 00;40;50;03

Michelle

That’s a soft, happy, loose dog. That’s what we like. But if the dog is stiff, if the dog is wagging its tail frantically, roughly, very quickly and the body feels tight and yet they’re still licking. This is a big problem and we need to prevent that from happening anymore, because the next step could be that the dog decides to use its teeth, and we do not want teeth on babies.

 

00;40;50;06 – 00;40;54;13

Dr. Mona

So it really matters how like you have to kind of look at what they’re doing with the licking.

 

00;40;54;15 – 00;41;24;18

Michelle

Yes. But yeah, what I would say though, and and this is where, again, you know, as much as I love social media because it, you know, it’s where I met you and it’s where I meet a lot of my clients because they are so happy there’s someone who understands them. But social media can be very misleading. And you see so many if you look up, if you type in a hashtag like dogs and babies or baby kids and dogs or whatever, you’re going to see the most inappropriate pictures and graphics.

 

00;41;24;18 – 00;41;47;09

Michelle

And people think a lot of things are cute, but they’re very dangerous. And so I don’t want you getting your parenting kit and dog advice from random people on the internet who think stuff is cute. And don’t look at YouTube because you’ll get more gray hair. Because I have done that and I have extra new gray hairs. Don’t look at YouTube in terms of cute dog and baby because there’s so much danger.

 

00;41;47;15 – 00;42;10;11

Michelle

And in fact, I actually often use videos from video clips from YouTube, from those to teach dog body language to my clients and to to say, even in the toddler class, I have excerpts and the baby class too. I think of homecomings, to show red flags to be like, okay, they thought this was cute, but here’s why it’s not cute, right?

 

00;42;10;16 – 00;42;28;28

Michelle

So, the hard licking. I would just not really let your dog lick your baby in general. I mean, maybe if they wanted maybe quick lick a foot, maybe because the baby, when they’re very little, they’re not going to be sucking on their toes yet because they’re not coordinated enough to do that until they’re a little bit older.

 

00;42;29;18 – 00;42;45;04

Michelle

There’s also the germ thing, but you can talk about that. You you can speak more to germs, than I can’t. I do know that long term, it’s good for kids to be around because you need to expose your immune system to a variety of things. But when a baby is teeny, teeny tiny, there is no need.

 

00;42;45;04 – 00;42;57;11

Michelle

I mean your dog. If I can be crass for a second, your dog probably just licked its butt and then it wants to lick your baby. And I’m not really sure if a baby who’s fresh out needs to deal with that kind of exposure.

 

00;42;57;14 – 00;43;22;14

Dr. Mona

Well, I completely agree, because when people ask me about, hey, can my dog lick my baby? I obviously only am talking about it from the perspective of the baby and as a pediatrician. So that’s why I’m happy we’re having this conversation, because it’s important to also think about the dog’s behavior. And that’s why when you commented on that post, I was like, oh my gosh, how come I was totally neglecting how that would approach in terms of a, you know, dog’s behavior, but you don’t.

 

00;43;22;14 – 00;43;50;22

Michelle

Know what you don’t know. Right? And so that’s why this conversation is absolutely magic to me, because you can speak to the health and safety of children, and I can speak to the behavior of dogs and how that affects the health and safety of children. And unless you’re really familiar with how a dog behaves, which, you know, the average pet parent, you know, they they live with their dog and they know their dog, but they don’t necessarily have any context for what’s inappropriate.

 

00;43;50;22 – 00;44;08;27

Michelle

They have no reason to know it. So that’s kind of why this podcast is such a miracle to me, because we can teach people that they have to be aware. They need to take off the rose colored glasses and stop just hoping for the best and stop just assuming things will be fine. Because when my parents grew up with dogs, it was fine.

 

00;44;08;27 – 00;44;13;28

Michelle

My grandparents grew up with kids. It was fine. Well, you know, they got lucky.

 

00;44;14;00 – 00;44;35;18

Dr. Mona

Yeah. And that’s kind of how it goes with like, parenting, right? We learn so much more about, you know, how to parent our kids just because our parents did something, does it mean that it was necessarily right? Car seats are a prime example. Yeah. But no I and so to kind of answer like from a pediatrician standpoint, I agree with you that I don’t think licking is really smart and especially in the first three months, because that’s when the immune system is really building.

 

00;44;35;21 – 00;44;55;16

Dr. Mona

There’s no date per se that says like, okay, at four months, the immune system is perfect, but it really comes out to like after the two month visit, after the three month visit, it comes into the sort of family’s discretion because I agree, you have to look at the dog’s behavior, but you also, you know, there to to some degree, there is some benefit, absolutely, of germ exposure for the immune system.

 

00;44;55;16 – 00;45;01;23

Dr. Mona

But you don’t want to just let the dog lick. Now that I’m hearing this, because that may not be good for the dog, it can.

 

00;45;01;23 – 00;45;29;03

Michelle

Be an outward manifestation of stress. Right? So the dog licking the baby may not be what you think it is. And honestly, if the dog is licking the baby, then the dog’s teeth are very close to the baby and it’s so hard to intervene fast enough. I mean, I can’t tell you how many people have told me they saw the bite happen and there was nothing I could do because unless you’re literally sitting between them, there’s nothing you can do.

 

00;45;29;04 – 00;45;33;14

Michelle

Right? And so there’s a lot of prevention that can be done.

 

00;45;33;17 – 00;45;54;03

Dr. Mona

And the next question really is more so for, you know, when when children become more mobile. So Ryan has now become, like you said, super mobile. And I’ve actually noticed a more a better relationship between the two of them now. I think maybe Shiloh was way, I don’t know, maybe he was waiting for this day, but now they’re actually much more friendly with each other when I observe them.

 

00;45;54;03 – 00;46;04;29

Dr. Mona

Yeah. But what are what are some ways and again, just some basic tips to teach a child to gently interact with the dog. And I know you have a course, but maybe like 2 or 3 tips or. Yeah, from that.

 

00;46;05;01 – 00;46;35;29

Michelle

Here’s the thing. I mean, a baby who is newly crowned is not developmentally capable of following directions. So there are lots of ways that you can help Ryan learn to pet Shiloh appropriately, but he’s not going to remember them. And you have to literally help him do it because he is such an infant still. So for example, I like to do petting where where it’s literally you’re putting your hand on the dog, you’re the one petting the dog, but Ryan’s hand is on top of your hand.

 

00;46;36;02 – 00;46;43;17

Michelle

Now, a couple reasons for that. Ryan still has an involuntary grasp, so that means that he could grab a.

 

00;46;43;17 – 00;46;44;15

Dr. Mona

Fistful.

 

00;46;44;18 – 00;47;07;12

Michelle

Of shiloh’s fur and not mean it. And if Tyler was having a bad day, or if Shiloh was an old dog with arthritis, or if Shiloh just didn’t like to be touched, Shiloh could turn around and bite his face off. Right? We don’t want that to happen. So by Ryan putting his hand on top of your hand and then you’re petting, we just do 1 or 2 strokes and then we’re done.

 

00;47;07;15 – 00;47;28;22

Michelle

If Ryan grabs accidentally, he’s grabbing your skin instead of Shiloh. Or so we practice those kinds of things. Now, the other thing that I would say is crucial when you are teaching kids is you have to remember they are sponges and they are watching every thing you do. So this is not a direct teaching, but this is a modeling type of teaching.

 

00;47;28;24 – 00;47;50;16

Michelle

So you are not going to go and hug Shiloh and squeeze Shiloh and give Shiloh a giant kiss on the nose. You could do that in private, but not in front of Ryan, because the last thing I need is for Ryan to go up and grab Shiloh’s cheeks and plant a big kiss on his nose, because some dog will bite him.

 

00;47;50;19 – 00;48;10;12

Michelle

Because dogs don’t like that. Generally, if a dog does like it, congratulations, you’re in the minority. You have a more tolerant, friendly dog than most. Most dogs don’t like it. They don’t want to be grabbed. They don’t want to be pat on the head. They hate that pat, pat, pat business, just like I did when I had relatives that would squeeze my cheeks or pat my head.

 

00;48;10;12 – 00;48;33;04

Michelle

I hated that dogs hate it too. So you are modeling good behavior with your dog, and that is probably the number one way. And the other thing I would finally say is not to try not to magnetize your child to your dog either, and not constantly make a big deal there. Shiloh. Oh my gosh, just say hi to no, no, no.

 

00;48;33;08 – 00;48;52;09

Michelle

We want to be like, wow, I see Shiloh drinking water. Let’s sit and watch Shiloh drink water from over here. So Shiloh has very good, right? I’m not saying you can’t be enthusiastic, but I’m saying we’re going to explain. This is what we do when we see dogs on the street. Let’s blow kisses to the dog. Not can we pet your dog, right.

 

00;48;52;11 – 00;49;11;01

Michelle

Because we want to model good behavior. Because if they think something is appropriate to do with their own dog at home, they’re going to think the same thing is appropriate to do with a stranger’s dog. And you don’t know what a stranger’s dog is going to do. So you have to teach appropriate all dog behavior with your dog.

 

00;49;11;07 – 00;49;32;10

Dr. Mona

Do you think that it’s better that if you are trying to kind of introduce your baby, like for example, Ryan, seven months, eight months? If like, have Shiloh come to us versus us going to Shiloh and playing with him, like if Shiloh sleeping on the couch. And I sometimes go and take Ryan near Shiloh and I, you know, I if we practice petting, is it better to just have Shiloh come to us?

 

00;49;32;17 – 00;49;55;22

Michelle

Yeah, it is, I mean, I mean, it’s so hard to avoid acute sleeping dogs. I know, but I have to tell you how often it is that I hear that when my dog got woken up by my kid, my dog growled at my kid. So I would rather model the behavior for Ryan of when the dog is sleeping.

 

00;49;55;22 – 00;50;14;17

Michelle

We leave it alone. I mean, period, end of story. Like this is what we do. But if Shiloh wakes up and you’re playing with Ryan on the floor, let’s say you’re playing with blocks or something and you’re on the floor with Ryan Shiloh. Come your Shiloh, and then Shiloh can come over. If he feels comfortable, then you can interact.

 

00;50;14;19 – 00;50;33;06

Michelle

But I want I want Ryan to grow up knowing there are boundaries, a sleeping dog and an eating dog. And, you know, whatever. A dog with a toy or a bone. We leave those things alone, period. And we can invite a dog over to say hello. And that way the dog has consent. They can come or not come.

 

00;50;33;06 – 00;50;34;08

Michelle

It’s up to them.

 

00;50;34;10 – 00;50;38;00

Dr. Mona

Are there certain signs that the dog may not be welcoming to the baby’s advances?

 

00;50;38;07 – 00;51;01;06

Michelle

Yeah, I look for. Yeah. I look for a tight bought a body that gets tight if if the mouth was open and loose before. If it, if it closes, that’s a big warning sign if you see the whites of the dog’s eyes. Oh, my puppy’s whining. If the weight of the dog’s eyes. If the dog’s tail changes position, there’s so many.

 

00;51;01;06 – 00;51;18;01

Michelle

Again, this goes back to the body language. Yeah. And often if I if I’m seeing that a lot, then I try to prevent interactions and I use baby gates and barriers and things like that to give the dog extra space so that the, baby doesn’t get too close.

 

00;51;18;04 – 00;51;37;01

Dr. Mona

That’s great. Michelle. Now, the next question I have, because it’s applying to us also right now, is Shiloh looks at Ryan’s toys as his because they’re all squishy and colorful. How can we, you know, teach Shiloh, especially that? Hey, these are Ryan’s toys and these are your toys. Is it even possible?

 

00;51;37;04 – 00;52;02;06

Michelle

I’m going to give you an answer that you’re not going to like, but I am. I’m the queen of organization and management, and I. I would say that you need to put toys away that you don’t want to have access to, which is hard, because some people’s houses look like a toy store, and some people just don’t have the energy at the end of the day to even consider doing that, let alone do the dishes or anything else.

 

00;52;02;06 – 00;52;31;24

Michelle

So it can be really hard. What I would say is that if you can separate the kids toys and the dogs toys, and I often have dogs toys in a basket that are put away same thing with the kids toys or on baskets on shelves or whatever. It avoids confusion. I have heard that some people have had luck with putting like a little drop of vanilla on either the dog’s toys or the kids toys so that the dog can discriminate between.

 

00;52;31;27 – 00;52;43;09

Michelle

But I honestly, I think to make your life easier, if you put things away and it just makes it easier, I would. There are some training things you can do though to help your dog give up toys that they have stolen.

 

00;52;43;14 – 00;52;48;12

Dr. Mona

And and then what about training or helping a dog not to bite baby?

 

00;52;48;15 – 00;53;09;22

Michelle

Yeah. So you know, dogs bite for a variety of reasons. And so again, going back to my sort of overarching philosophy is we need to think about why dogs are doing what they’re doing. But I would say that if your dog is at risk of putting its teeth on the baby, that the baby is too close and the two of them should not be interacting that closely.

 

00;53;09;22 – 00;53;38;17

Michelle

And so we need to really dive a little bit deeper, and have a deeper, you know, a better look at what’s going on, why the dog is thinking about using its teeth. Is it playing? Is it doing little love nibbles? Is it, uncomfortable or what that situation is because a dog bite to a baby, even if it’s like something that’s kind of cute, like a little nibble can be a disaster to an infant, a toddler, because they’re so sensitive.

 

00;53;38;17 – 00;53;46;04

Michelle

They have such soft skin and stuff. So I would just advise to not allow enough closeness where something like that could happen in the first place.

 

00;53;46;04 – 00;54;01;00

Dr. Mona

That’s great. I yeah, I definitely think that’s a good idea. And I mean, we I’m not even going to go into dog bites. I’ll probably do a post about that and maybe we can do a post together about that in the future. I would love that. You know, obviously from my perspective, what to do if a child does have a dog bite.

 

00;54;02;09 – 00;54;10;25

Dr. Mona

But obviously from your perspective, how to prevent it in the first place, which would be so good. And I think that’s something like we talked about earlier. I don’t want us to have to, you know.

 

00;54;10;25 – 00;54;11;08

Michelle

Get rid.

 

00;54;11;08 – 00;54;16;01

Dr. Mona

Of our dogs because we didn’t help train them. Well, that’s a really good point.

 

00;54;16;01 – 00;54;37;12

Michelle

And that that does beg the other question. And I want people to know that if there was an incident, if there was a bite, we need to reevaluate the situation. It doesn’t mean your dog has to be euthanized. It doesn’t necessarily even mean that you have to get rid of your dog. So, these are decisions that are not to be taken lightly regardless.

 

00;54;37;12 – 00;55;02;11

Michelle

But you may be feeling so guilty, and you may think that if there was a bite or a nibble, that it’s an absolute dealbreaker and the dog has to leave. But if this is something you’re feeling conflicted about, talk to somebody. Me, you, anybody, who knows what they’re talking about, who can help you put a plan in place, or who can help you actually assess whether or not it’s safe to do.

 

00;55;02;13 – 00;55;23;13

Michelle

Right. So we really look carefully at the whole situation. Is it preventable in the future? And more importantly, what is your commitment as a parent to ensure that it doesn’t happen again? Because if you’re already strapped for time, energy, etc., if you really don’t have any bandwidth, then maybe it’s best for that dog not to live with your family.

 

00;55;23;20 – 00;55;42;12

Michelle

And we need to have a really fair and honest conversation about that. But it’s not necessarily a deal breaker, because oftentimes it was an accident. Like literally just, oh my gosh, I wish I knew better. You know, maybe a babysitter was there and you forgot to tell the babysitter something important. And so the bite happened. Or the same thing happens with grandparents.

 

00;55;42;12 – 00;56;04;29

Michelle

I have clients with both of those situations where bites have happened on grandparents watch and on the babysitters watch. Those are all absolutely avoidable. But again, you don’t know what you don’t know. And so I help people think through and have contingency plans so that if you have a babysitter coming over, here is the checklist you give the babysitter so that you are sure that you keep both the dog safe and the kids safe.

 

00;56;05;00 – 00;56;06;13

Michelle

You would do that with any caregiver?

 

00;56;06;18 – 00;56;32;19

Dr. Mona

Absolutely. And my last question, of course, like I have so many more, but this is the big one. We talked about it earlier barking I yeah, after I heard that you have a barking course, I’m totally taking that one because Shiloh was not a barker actually before Ryan. And now he barks at the people crossing the street because we live in an apartment, and he barks at the door when he hears the elevator because we live near the elevator, so he’s barking.

 

00;56;32;19 – 00;56;45;10

Dr. Mona

When you hear someone or sees someone that’s not part of our family. He barks. And my husband comes home late at night from the door, barking at any threat. It seems like, I don’t know why.

 

00;56;45;11 – 00;57;09;22

Michelle

It’s probably because there are. We call these sudden environmental changes, and I think that’s probably what he’s barking at. Yeah. So, so I don’t know if it’s special course for it, but I have it. So I have a membership. It’s called Thriving Parents of Kids and Dogs. And I’m essentially my goal is to get parents to feel like they are starting at maybe just feeling like they’re getting through the day and just surviving.

 

00;57;09;22 – 00;57;26;11

Michelle

Right. And I want to get them to a place where they feel like they’re thriving, where they are confident they have skills, they know how to keep everybody safe, but they also feel less stressed. That’s really a big goal for me and to help parents build habits, even if it takes five minutes a day. What can I help you do to make your life better?

 

00;57;26;11 – 00;57;47;05

Michelle

So you like your dog more, and so that you feel that your kids and dogs are safe and happy together, right? And so the way that the membership works is every month I have a theme, and that theme is based on a specific behavior problem that I know is especially difficult for families with kids and dogs. So this month we’re doing barking.

 

00;57;47;07 – 00;58;05;00

Michelle

In the past months we did helping dogs learn to be alone. We’ve done biting and chasing, which happens with puppies and toddlers especially, but when people do join my membership, they get access to all of that past content. So if you were to join, for example, or if any of your listeners were to join, they would get the barking unit.

 

00;58;05;00 – 00;58;30;14

Michelle

They would also get the biting and chasing unit. So these are real issues and I know what they are because I lived them myself. So I know, I know that it absolutely sucks if your baby’s woken up from a nap because your dog is barking, but because I’m a dog trainer, I know how to help you to get your dog to stop barking, but we have to dig in a little bit and try to do a little bit of, like I said, Nancy Drew work to to figure out situation and then how to fix it.

 

00;58;30;14 – 00;58;49;10

Michelle

So, I am really excited about this program because it gives people this really nice family, to be a part of this group of people who are in the same situation. You are. I jokingly kind of say that it’s one part support group and one part on Call Dog trainer. So you just have all of this support.

 

00;58;49;27 – 00;59;07;09

Michelle

And we have a, you know, a as a bonus, we have sort of a Facebook members only community. But I also for people who are not Facebook people, I have a member library with all of our content off of Facebook. If that’s too distracting or depressing these days, you can still get all the support you need somewhere else too.

 

00;59;07;09 – 00;59;09;25

Michelle

So that’s where the barking stuff, all that.

 

00;59;10;02 – 00;59;15;26

Dr. Mona

So really it has to come down to what the reason is for the barking to determine how to approach it.

 

00;59;15;28 – 00;59;16;17

Michelle

Exactly.

 

00;59;16;22 – 00;59;17;14

Dr. Mona

Yeah, okay.

 

00;59;17;14 – 00;59;42;06

Michelle

Because dogs bark for different reasons. If you have a dog that’s barking because it’s afraid you’re going to approach that differently than you would approach a dog who’s barking because it’s territorial and or, you know, different than how you would approach a dog who barks because the UPS guy comes and leaves. So they’re very different situations, and we address each of them with different strategies.

 

00;59;42;08 – 01;00;10;09

Dr. Mona

Amazing. Oh, Michelle, I love talking to you about this. And I know we’re going to have a great relationship. Being able to do hopefully some future, either a podcast episode or everything of so much of the, you know, I love that you share my understanding that children are very super toddlers especially are very similar to to dogs that are when I when we train Shiloh with so many things, like in terms of obviously, you know, potty training or house training him commands, basic commands.

 

01;00;10;09 – 01;00;23;29

Dr. Mona

I now had Ryan and I’m like, It’s very similar in many ways, especially when I talk about parenting a toddler. I’m like, oh yeah, the reward system, the cause and effect, all of this, something like the dogs are so similar.

 

01;00;24;03 – 01;00;47;15

Michelle

Well, and honestly, the science, I mean, you’re a doctor, so you appreciate science the way that I do. I taught biology, same thing. The science says that using positive reinforcement is a million times more effective than any other kind of teaching strategy. So whether you’re talking about your kids or whether you’re talking about your dogs, using rewards based training is the way to go.

 

01;00;47;21 – 01;00;50;24

Michelle

It’s pretty much established fact.

 

01;00;50;24 – 01;00;56;14

Dr. Mona

So I loved having you on. What would be your final message for everyone listening today?

 

01;00;56;16 – 01;01;17;08

Michelle

I just don’t want you to feel alone in this. It is hard enough to parent and struggle through the day to day. You know, just with kids. But again, when you have dogs, it’s even harder. And I just want you to know that I exist. You can follow me on Instagram or Facebook at Pooch Parenting. And I do have my membership.

 

01;01;17;08 – 01;01;28;25

Michelle

I’m going to be opening registration again in late September or early October, and you can get on the waitlist for that at. This is a mouthful. Thriving Parents of Kids and dogs.com.

 

01;01;28;27 – 01;01;45;06

Dr. Mona

And I will attach all of that to my show notes. Because I think if you’re listening to this, I’m obviously releasing it before she, you know, opens up her membership. But if you’re listening to it before then. But I’m sure even if someone’s listening to it, listening to this after, you’ll probably have another round of membership.

 

01;01;45;06 – 01;01;45;17

Dr. Mona

I’ll have.

 

01;01;45;17 – 01;01;58;11

Michelle

A waitlist. Yeah, we’re going to probably open about three times a year. I would really love to build build a relationship with my members and really establish that community before I open it to new people, I will.

 

01;01;58;11 – 01;02;17;09

Dr. Mona

I’m definitely joining and I have to be honest with you, I don’t join anything. And so this is a big deal. Like because let’s be honest. So like, I mean, in social media, there’s a lot of courses for parenting. But because I’m a pediatrician, I know a lot of the parenting stuff because I do it every day, but this is something I really need.

 

01;02;17;13 – 01;02;33;22

Dr. Mona

So I’m like, I this is honestly, I’m going to I’m going to text my husband after we’re done. We’re done here. And I’m going to say we’re signing up for this. So for everyone, you need to follow her Instagram account again. Like I said, I’m going to be putting it on my show notes as well as her, the Facebook like how to search on Facebook and also the her website.

 

01;02;33;29 – 01;02;36;11

Dr. Mona

But thanks again Michelle for being here today.

 

01;02;36;13 – 01;02;39;26

Michelle

Thank you so much for having me. I feel like we’re a match made in heaven.

 

01;02;39;29 – 01;03;00;03

Dr. Mona

I do, I love this, have a good night. Thank you. Thank you for tuning in for this week’s episode. I hope you guys enjoyed it. As always, please leave a review, share it with a friend, comment on my social media and if you’re not already, follow me at PedsDocTalk on Instagram. Love doing this for all of you.

 

01;03;00;08 – 01;03;03;14

Dr. Mona

Have a great rest of your week. Take care. Talk to you soon!