Hi All,

My sister gave birth three weeks ago. To cut an long story short, for one reason and another she didn't know she was pregnant until she was in labour and gave birth to a lovely healthy baby boy.

Nando (my 2y/o male GSD) has met Dylan (the baby) on one occassion, which was in the garden. Dylan was in his car seat/carry cot and Nando, as he does usually, jumped up to greet my sister and got a whiff of Dylan. He was on his hind legs and not putting any pressure onto Dylan's car seat what so ever (in fact he was like a dancing bear.)

It was at this point I realised he wasn't going to be ignoring the baby as I had expected (He has met older babies and doesn't bat an eye lid.. it is when they start walking he thinks they're all his best friend) and that I needed to take some steps to have them introduced.

He does jump up at visitors and he does greet us in the morning by jumping up. I have tried hundreds of times to lay down the ground rules to my family and frankly it's not likely to happen.

Whenever Dylan comes over he is in the front room, whilst Nando is in the back room/conservatory/kitchen/garden. (He has free range between any of these areas and is never allowed in the front room as we don't really go in there unless we have non-dogpeople visitors!

I have since brought a number of blankets of Dylan's home so the smell isn't completely alien to Nando. I've allowed him to sniff them calmly and I think I want to procede by having my sister and the rest of the family greet him until he calms down, and then have Dylan come in with my sister (again in the car seat) so that Nando will be calm and ignoring him. I am just worried that Nando is so large, I want him to understand that he has to be gentle around Dylan, but I don't want it to turn into a scenario where Nando is banished from the room every time Dylan comes over.

To put things in perspective, my sister lives around the corner so most of the visits with Dylan are us going to his house. I also have a four year old Niece and Nando has been around her since she was about 2. He has a great temperament with kids.. he is just large and bouncy and I do think the noise of babies crying will startle him!

Congratulations on your new nephew!

If you can get hold of one of these CDs http://www.amazon.co.uk/Clix-Noises-and-Sounds-CD/dp/B005LFOVWW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1376552763&sr=8-1&keywords=noises+for+dogs there are baby noises on it.  There are other similar CDs available, but this is the one I have so I can vouch for its having baby crying so you may be able to get Nando used to the sound. 

Or maybe get a recording of Dylan himself crying and making other baby noises?  HTH

maybe worth getting an old car seat / pram and putting a doll with Dylans clothes on it and having that around Nando.

Congratulations on your new Nephew , i bet your sister is still in shock.

I like the idea of the baby noises CD, I think the noises are what would worry me most as Nando tends to bark at the drop of a hat! LOL