apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

We've had our first "child", Cecil, our Boston Terrier for four years now and have one year old twins. The boys adore Cecil and have even learned to play fetch with him, and give him kisses. We've had to watch the following: baby toys (many toys are similar to Cecil's "babies" he has always played with, so we now have to limit his toys to outside time to prevent the destruction of baby items), keep an eye on bottles, binkies, etc (Cecil really likes to lick these items...ugh!), and kisses (my boys like to get right in Cecil's face, open their mouths and let Cecil "kiss" them...again, ugh! yuck!). But I think they will have really wonderful memories of growing up with Cecil, and he has brought such joy to our lives, and many laughs. The key is to supervise!

I think it depends on the pet. Our Jack Russell was four years old when our daughter was born and it was an absolute nightmare. He ate all of her toys and pacifiers, got aggressive towards her and started being really disruptive (barking for no reason, messing in the house). It eventually got to the point where we had to re-home him. He is now doing great at my mother in law's where he has two larger dogs to play with and a huge yard to run around in. He's even better with our daughter when we bring her over but we've learned our lesson. Until we are completely DONE with having babies we wont be bringing another dog into the house.

A guinea pig or a cat...now that's another story. lol.

We've been thinking about this a lot, as we have a five-year old Boston Terrier and a cat, and are expecting our first (human) child in September. ;-) Following design.is.good's advice, I'm hoping for a very smooth transition to a larger family.

We had our two cats Henley and Ballard for a few years before our now 1-year old son Griffin was born. At first I was nervous about having them around, but as soon as Griffin got a little mobile he loved scooting, crawling, and now walking towards them. They have helped teach him how to "pet nicely", and learn gentle behavior. Also, Griffin, even at his young age, points out their food dish ever night around feeding time and we praise him that yes, it is time to feed his kitties.

We also had two cats when my daughter was born. Things had been going well until two months ago when my younger (and very bitchy) cat attacked the baby. It was horrible. She still has one puncture mark healing on her scalp. That kitty no longer lives with us.

Anyway, I bring this up because I would recommend that expecting parents think long and hard about the temperament of their pets. We knew our younger cat was going to be a problem and in hindsight wish we'd found her a new home before the baby arrived.

Our other cat is a big lump of love, thankfully.

We got our pug Otis a few weeks before I learned I was pregnant with twins. Otis is now 4 1/2, the twins are 3 1/2. The kids love the dog, treat him kindly (most of the time) and like to hold his leash when we go for walks and help fill his food and water bowl.

"They" say that having pets while in infancy makes babies less likely to get pet allergies as they get older. It makes sense to me, the exposure to allergens while the immune system is developing. We have a Maine Coon, Agatha, who adores our baby. She's not stupid, she knows not to allow the baby too close when we're not supervising. Sometimes we hold the baby and hold the cat and we show the baby how to pet the kitty nicely.

I remember having cats from a very young age, We did not get a dog until I was 12.

I don't think the age of the child is what a parent should be worried about, as an animal should learn proper behaviors regardless of the age of the child. What is the most important is that the parents understand the additional work they will have to do.

If you get a puppy for your child, even tho the child may have responsibilities with the puppy, that puppy belongs to the parent. And puppies (kittens too) can be a lot of work. If the child gets bored of it, its still your responsibility.

I don't mean to be too harsh about this, but from experience working in a veterinary clinic, there is nothing more frustrating then a parent coming in to have a pet 'put down' because his/her child does not want it anymore.

We had 2 cats when our daughter was born, we only have 1 of them now. He's a sweet old man of a cat (almost 14) and quite gentle - except for times when the toddler does toddler things like stick her finger in his ear. She's 2 1/2 and learning her limits! I grew up in a dog household, and my husband grew up in a cat household. Neither of us can imagine a home without a pet - we will always have a cat or a dog. Now that she is old enough to help around the house, our daughter helps fill his food dish. As she gets older we will add more pet related chores. I think that having and caring for a pet helps children learn respect for others, and gives them a sense of pride when they know they are responsible for caring for that pet.

When our daughter was born, we had two large dogs and two rabbits. Now she is 8 months old, and we have just gotten three baby chickens to add to the mix. I agree that the key is supervision. Our daughter is still too young to understand "gentle hands", and especially now that she is crawling, we wouldn't leave her anywhere in the vicinity of any of the animals without *close* supervision. As sweet as the pets all are, none of them should be expected to endure the unmitigated grabbing, twisting, pinching, scratching hands of a baby. But it is a joy to see her with the animals--our one remaining dog (a doberman--our other dog passed away recently) loves to lick the baby as much as I will allow, and our daughter loves to crawl towards the dog and try to pet her. The dog (shockingly) doesn't try to steal the baby's toys, and is always very gentle and cautious around her. The baby also loves to watch the chicks running around and peeping, and to touch and watch the rabbits. We are lucky, though, that all of our animals have been so sweet, and I would definitely think twice about adding another dog to the mix with a young child in the house, because there's no guarantee that the next one will work out as well. For now, obviously, the animals are my responsibility and just there for our daughter to learn to love, but we will ask her to help with them increasingly as she grows. I think it is a good way for kids to learn responsibility and compassion. I also read the study about allergies, and I believe that it said that children who grow up with 2 or more pets in the home have lower incidence of allergies as adults.

We decided to adopt a pet when our son was 3 since he loved my mother-in-law's little dog "Cowboy Cody". We rescued a Jack Russell named Jack who ended up biting my son in the face pretty badly and leaving him with a huge scar. We returned the dog not giving up hope that we could find our son a nice dog and not wanting him to grow up in fear of dogs we rescued a miniature pincher mix female. She is perfect for him they adore each other, play together and get in trouble together as well! I think if your child is younger there should always be supervision regardless of how good the dog is, we love our dog but never let our guard down. At the age of 3 he was already helping by doing stuff like filling her food bowl and opening the door for her to let her out (back fenced in yard) teaching him responsibility.

Three cats before a child came into our life, and there was really nothing to it because all three cats are extremely shy and have stayed out of our son's way. They have never liked strangers. Of course they came to hang out with us, but they never approached our child or jumped into his crib or did anything funny business. Thus we never had to worry about problems like aggression, etc.

If the cats had had different personalities and temperatments, you bet we would have had a different strategy.

design.is.good is my sister, and she is totally right...cecil is amazing with the twins! i, however, wasn't as lucky. i had a cat named jack when i was pregnant and once i had my daughter, jack's demeanor totally changed. he went from being my baby to trying to share my time and he didn't adjust well. i think it's very important to realize that all animals are different and some may not respond to the new baby as well as others. jack has since been given to my friend, and now my daughter (only 2-years-old) has asthma. i also have 3 outdoor "big" dogs, but they are wonderful with her! i guess it just depends on the kids and the animals!!!

We had 3 rescue dogs, ages 7, 5, and 1.5 when our DS (now 18 mos) was born. They are all great family dogs in temperament. We have trained them well, and have had no problems. Training, understanding pack behavior, and having safe boundaries - especially with food - are the key.

We have a cat and a dog (we did have a cat and two dogs, but one of the dogs passed away a year ago). My daughter is 3 and knows (mostly) how to treat the animals, which she adores and helps take care of by getting food for them. We have always supervised, of course. It's funny because our cat doesn't like anybody (including us) except our daughter. Our daughter, since she was a baby, could pull on the cat's tail or her ear and Punky would be fine with it. I guess if she's going to choose someone to like, I'm glad it's our daughter!

We have a 4 year old boston terrier who was our little baby till our human baby came - my son is now 5 months old. Per our pediatrician's instructions we have kept them pretty separate and are just now starting to encourage some licks on the feet and hands. They surprisingly don't have that much interest in each other which makes it easy to co-exist. However, i have noticed that our dog thinks nothing of licking and kissing and jumping on other small children in our extended family - so i think she gets the message that our baby is somehow "special". I look forward to the day when our son can play fetch with her and cuddle, and to have his chores involve caring for her.

Pencils: I grew up with cats and, sadly, when my our last family cat died (when I was 17), my mom and I both developed really severe cat allergies (asthma, hives, swollen face). I certainly hope I was the exception to the rule, but you can develop allergies at any point in your life, so there's no guarantee that you'll avoid future pet allergies by having pets in the house with your kids.

My parents had a dog, Ayuda, when I was born. We also had a cat, Tony, that was the most tolerant cat in the world and would let my baby brother carry him around...so as far back as I an remember, there were pets in our household.
My husband and I currently have no children, but we have a dog, Luna, who gets a lot of exposure to our friends' small children and babies.

The age question has different answers based on whether the animal in question is supposed to be the child's pet or not. If Dahlia wants a dog, and her parents haven't necessarily had much experience with animals before, 8 or so is probably a good age. When she's 8, she can be reasonably expected to feed the dog (with some reminding) and take an active part in bathing and walking her pet. If, on the other hand, parents who loooove animals are wondering how long they have to wait before they can have a real family (aka with kids AND pets), that totally depends on the temperament of both species of smaller creatures and on the kind of pet you're dealing with. Have an infant? Rottweiler fans should probably wait a bit. Guinea pig fiends, on the other hand, are probably ok.