"Sibling" Rivalry

Little Rude will be welcomed into our family sometime in the near future, but it is important to note that he is not the first "baby" at our house. We got our Labradoodle, Tucker, in May of last year and he'll be about a year and-a-half when his little "brother" arrives. We are already seeing signs that there will be some jealousy/competition/rivalry going on in our home.



First, let me say that Tucker is great around babies and kids from what we have seen. He seems to know to be more gentle with tiny people and he is never aggressive or possesive of anything like his food or toys. The only problem is that he gets very excitable around youngin's - wanting to chase them when they run, and sniffing and licking all over them. Also, he is a very attention-seeking creature. When David and I are hugging or snuggling on the couch he has to weasel his way in-between us. Also, he will whine incessantly if we separate him in a room by himself when we are at home. He has to follow us everywhere we go (which is why I think he should have been named Shadow.) Anyway, these are all reasons that lead me to believe that there will be some challenging times for the Rude family in the near future.

As our house is slowly accumulating items of the baby-nature, we think that Tucker is becoming aware of an impending threat... He furiously sniffed the Pack n'Play set we brought home a couple of weeks ago, and he watched intently as we assembled it in the living room. I left a small stack of baby socks on the couch the other day, and when I got out of the shower, I noticed that many of the pairs had been separated and scattered in various places around the room. Last weekend, my mom brought over a cute pair of tiny shoes that I placed on the coffee table while we went down to the basement to look at something. When we came back upstairs, we found one of the wee shoes on the floor covered in slobber with the shoelace completely removed and chomped on! Such mischief! - and it only seems to be directed towards Baby Rude's stuff!

I borrowed a book that addresses the subject of introducing a new baby to your dog, and it offers advice for preparing your pet for the transition. I hope the pointers will work, otherwise, I may have some interesting blog posts to share in the near future...