Our dog, Daisy, is in many ways a very odd sort of dog. She is a labradoodle, but one that was the product of the union between a full-sized labrador retriever and a miniature poodle, so rather than a majestic, curly-furred creature, she is a medium-sized, slightly dishevelled-looking dog with hairy hobbit feet and a beard. She doesn’t like car rides and rarely shows any interest in food dropped on the floor. More than anything, she likes to lick. She will lick your hands, your face, and given half a chance, the inside of your ears. She will lick them incessantly until you tell her to stop and physically remove her to a distance of no fewer than 6 feet from the body part she was licking. She will occasionally give you a slurp on her way past so stealthy you don’t realize it’s happening until it’s too late, and she has been known to lick inanimate objects, like the coffee table, for no apparent reason. When she was a puppy, she managed one night while in her crate to somehow actually LICK a HOLE in the WALL.
At the end of April, our family will be growing in size due to the arrival of one (1) baby, hopefully the kind with chubby thighs and, as my grandmother put it, an innate willingness to sleep through the night starting immediately at 6 weeks. As first-time parents, we’re worried about all the usual things — how to deal with the sleep deprivation, how to remember to put the brakes on the stroller so the baby doesn’t roll down the driveway, what to do if the baby doesn’t have the kind of hair that looks adorably hilarious in spiky pigtails, what to do if the baby bypasses my DNA altogether and develops Mike’s natural athletic ability and wants to enroll in a sport that has games at 6:30 on a Saturday morning — but we’re also being kept awake at night by a rather gaping hole in our parenting knowledge (such that it is at this point), specifically on the subject of how exactly one should go about ensuring their dog doesn’t lick a hole in their baby. Apparently this is not one of those things that one can expect while they are expecting.
Congratulations.
We were worried about Spicy and babies, but generally, he is completely apathetic toward the existence of both of our children.
The cat, on the other hand, loves George… but only George.
Plus, babies tend to be fairly loud when being licked… which tends to frighten the licker, and therefore the situation tends to rectify itself. I think it is a built in baby thing.
I wonder what it is about George that the cat loves so much!
I’m honestly not sure how any of our pets will respond to a baby in the house. Daisy has had limited exposure to babies (the most common mini visitor to our house is our friends’ 1-year-old) because she just gets so excited when people come over that she usually gets locked in the basement, lest she knock the little dude over and inspire in him a lifelong fear of dogs.
The cats usually just watch at a safe distance, although I can see them being big fans of another warm body in the house to flop all over in a completely undignified manner.
You are talking about the baby so casually, I’m reluctant to go all SQUEE SQUEE SQUEE OMG CONGRATULATIONS because this likely means you announced it earlier and I, like, missed it or something. And the other commenters are acting all smoothe, too, which increases my anxiety. But SQUEE SQUEE SQUEE OMG CONGRATULATIONS!!!
Lauren – I think the cat likes George because he is a messy eater and smells like food.
Swistle – This was the first that I heard, but I had an inkling that it might be coming…
I am very happy for you, babies are wonderful, tasty, little creatures.
Maybe not quite the same, since I bet your dog’s a lot bigger, but one of our cats licks the baby’s head all the time when I’m nursing him. Then she looks at me, all pleased with herself, like “Look! I iz helping you kleen yr kitten, yes?” And I just pat her on the head and go “yes, yes, you are” and, as for the baby, he doesn’t even seem to notice.
That said, maybe you could get the dog a babydoll for when the baby arrives (like they sometimes say to do with siblings, so they’ll have something to take care of, too)… only it could be a really delicious and lickable babydoll–coated in peanut butter.
Or, on second thought, that is kind of a disturbing suggestion and might backfire by encouraging baby licking in general… also, you’d get peanut butter all over your carpets. Probably don’t do that.:)
Really, it’ll all work out, I’m sure. Try not to worry. And congrats on the pregnancy!!
But… but… the peanut butter baby is a HILARIOUS suggestion!
[…] a thousand (which is not particularly surprising because, as I’ve mentioned before, she once licked a hole in the wall) with the list of the only household items that have not been licked pretty much […]