"We Just Had a Baby. My Husband Won’t Admit What We Have to Do With Our Dog Now."

Will he choose the baby or the dog?

Original column: Care and Feeding, July 15 2024

My take: The LW and her husband both love his dog, which he’s had since before they met. But now they have a 3-month-old baby, and the LW is alarmed by the dog’s reaction, which includes frequent growling, and multiple attempts to knock her over during breastfeeding, by growling and jumping on her. He has nipped at the baby’s hands twice.

They now crate the dog at night and keep baby and dog in separate rooms during the day. Additional training for the dog hasn’t helped.

The LW is ready to rehome their pet. Her husband “refuses.” He thinks rehoming would “betray” the dog, and wants to keep working with him. The LW is seriously considering moving herself and the baby to live with family until “we fix this.”

Ok!

Full credit to Care & Feeding for opening with a clear statement of the inarguable bottom line. It acknowledges that “some dogs just do not jive with having a child around.” It says “growls and nips” are the “warning before the bigger reaction, and you need to pay attention.” And it says if all other efforts fail, “your husband must agree that your child’s safety comes first and figure out how to decide to throw in the towel.”

But that qualifier —“if all other efforts fail”—turns the thing on its head.

Plausible efforts, Care & Feeding suggests, might include “training, medication, and modifying your own behavior and lifestyle.” That’s a lot of things to try, none of them is a quick fix, and the mother’s position is that while they’re trying, the baby remains at risk.

Moreover, these efforts are intended not to secure the baby, but to make the dog more comfortable. The couple needs to figure out “whether living in a home with a baby is the best thing for [the dog].” Meanwhile, the mother is so uncomfortable she’s thinking of moving out.

The mother. That would be the husband’s wife.

Care & Feeding says the “broader question” is: “Even if [the dog] successfully completes training, will he be living comfortably in your home, or will he simply be behaving better while feeling miserable?” If I were the mother, my broader question would be: “Even if [the dog] successfully completes training (or is medicated), will I ever be able to relax?”

Advice Obsessed understands that people love their dogs, and that many dog owners introduce babies into their homes without difficulty. But this dog is enough of a threat to justify separate rooms during the day and crating at night. That’s a pretty tense way to live, as well as being one slip away from a bad incident.

So in answer to the LW’s direct question—should she and the baby retreat to safer ground—Advice Obsessed offers an unequivocal yes.

But she shouldn’t stop there. Her husband’s refusal to remove a dog who has nipped his 3-month-old twice and regularly growls at her is bizarre to the point of disordered.

A normal parent’s response to the arrival of a first baby is a combination of besotted and fiercely protective. These feelings support the parents in their immediate, imperative tasks of loving their child and keeping it safe. And actually, keeping it safe comes first.

But this father is more worried about betraying his dog. His wife says their arguments about the dog are “horrible,” which means he’s willing to alienate her over this. He’s not on the right page, and it’s already been three months. He’s a husband and a father, and he needs to get his head wrapped around his family, fast.

Care & Feeding says nothing about this. That’s a significant lapse. Advice Obsessed will file this one under “Best Question, Worst Answer.”