Does Getting A Dog Prepare You For A Baby?

No. The answer is no. Nothing can prepare you for a baby. But if you want a dog, that's different. Get a dog because you want a dog not because you want to see if you can handle a baby.

I never really wanted a dog, but several years ago we watched the Westminster Kennel Club finale and saw this cute little beagle, Uno, win best in show. And that was it. I was convinced we should get a dog. Which was strange because I didn't like dogs before this.

We ended up getting a Pug Beagle mix - Puggle, that we named Pippin. He's so cute and adorable, but all dogs are when they are puppies. Puppies, as you know, need training. So my husband and I watched lots and lots of episodes of the Dog Whisperer before getting the dog, so we knew how to be good dog owners and so we'd be on the same page about training. In the beginning the dog, like the baby needs to get up and pee every 2 hours. The dog is a little easier to potty train and teach to 'hold it' and not pee for several hours. I think it took us a week maybe 2 to house break the dog. To teach him to pee only outside and to let us know when he needed to pee. Of course we had the occasional accident in the beginning.

As for the baby, well lets just say she's 20 weeks and still isn't house broken! Being on the same page with a dog is way easier than being on the same page with a baby. The dog doesn't throw that many curve balls at you. Every time we think we know what we're doing and one thing is working, our daughter, decided that it doesn't work for her anymore. The dog never really did this. If we fed him and played with him and let him out to pee, he was cool with us. Plus we each have our own parenting styles. I don't like when the baby cries at night in her crib, so I go in and pick her up. My husband doesn't like that she cries at night but can't go in and pick her up and calm her down because he's so agitated that she's crying, she picks up on this and won't calm down. So he lets her just cry. We didn't have to deal with this with the dog....


Now that we have a dog AND a baby, the dog gets way less attention. Not intentionally, but we're just so tied up with the baby that we can't always give him the attention that he got before. I know what you are thinking, he's a dog, he'll get over it, I should get over it, but I can't! He looks like he's pouting sometimes I swear!