We are excited to announce that we have added our first human child to our family, Juniper Eve. We were worried about how our furrier children would react to the new addition, so we did a bit of research on how to smoothly integrate Juniper into our pet loving household. Below are some of the tips we learned along the way.

Bodhi & Juniper

1. Make sure your dog knows the commands SIT, DOWN, and STAY. Use lots of praise and positive reinforcement to get these commands rock solid before the baby is born.
2. Your dog must learn that guarding objects is unacceptable behavior. When the baby comes, he won’t know which toys are babys and which are his.
3. Try to find a soundtrack of a baby screaming to get your dog used to the noise.
4. Familiarize your dog with your baby’s sent by bring home a blanket or towel that your baby has used. Speak encouragingly and in an upbeat voice as your dog smells the item.
5. Let the new mom enter the house first and greet the dog without the baby.

And a few things we learned through our experience…

When Juniper went through a rough colicky patch, my husband would hold her and kick a ball for Bodhi, our dog. This bounced the baby, which she loved, and made the dog happy. Now when the baby cries Bodhi actually gets excited and brings us a toy.

For the first few weeks it was really hard to get out of the house making Bodhi bored and depressed. We had our dog owning/loving friends steal Bodhi occasionally to keep him from going stir crazy.

Both Juniper and Bodhi love going on walks now, so it’s a great bonding opportunity and we get them out together as often as we can.

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View the previous post in this series:
Fleas and Ticks and Mosquitoes- Oh My!
Fleas: Eradicating Them Naturally

While I always prefer to be as natural as possible, sometimes, especially with pets that have bad allergic skin reactions to fleas, we need to use more powerful, synthetic flea medications.  It is important to remember that “natural” does not necessarily mean “non-toxic.”  Mercury, lead, arsenic, and uranium are quite natural, after all, and quite toxic too!  We want to get rid of the fleas while using the product that is least toxic to our beloved pets.  The common, old-school pesticides (mainly organophosphates and pyrethrins) are toxic to everything —fleas, dogs, cats, people— which means that you can’t put enough on to kill the fleas without having toxic effects on your pet.  That’s not what we want.

Fortunately, there are a couple of products that are extremely effective against fleas, and actually quite non-toxic to mammals. The active ingredients in Advantage (imidacloprid) and Frontline (fipronil) kill fleas by blocking channels in the flea’s nervous system, but don’t fit into the mammalian versions of those channels.  As a result, they are very safe for dogs and cats (not to mention the people who snuggle up with them in bed at night!).  I have seen some reactions to Advantage and Frontline, generally in the form of hair loss or irritation at the site of application, but that is unusual.

But be careful —there are many “spot-on” products that are much more toxic, and which are marketed to make them seem “just like” Advantage or Frontline —but there are no other non-toxic products currently on the market, so don’t be fooled; those products may be cheaper, but they are going to be less effective and much more dangerous.

This article was generously contributed by Dr. Stanley of House Call Of The Wild.