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Home › Articles › General Safety Issues › Baby and Animal Kingdom

Baby and Animal Kingdom

Tips to Help Both Worlds Exist Peacefully and Safely

By Katherine Bontrager

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The family pets may have adapted fine when you brought your newborn home, but all that can change when your baby starts crawling and invading the animal's space. This can be particularly hard for older – and in many cases, grumpier – dogs and cats. How can you establish peace between the animal kingdom and your baby's expanding world?

Gene Carozza finds himself in the midst of that challenge right now. The Boston-based family has two dogs, including an elderly canine, and a cat. Carozza's daughter, Leah, is now 2 1/2 years old, which means she wants more than anything to interact with the furry family members.

"Jessie is a 6-year-old female Border Collie, and is playful, highly intelligent and great with kids," Carozza says. "Charlie is an approximately 13-year-old rescued male, who's a mix of German Shepherd and Rottweiler. He suffers from hip dysplasia, poor hearing and eyesight. He's mean looking, but has a sweet personality and doesn't bite, but he can be temperamental at times. And finally, Max is a male 6-year-old shorthair cat we rescued."

Making Adjustments

With all these paws underfoot, Carozza pays special attention to where food dishes are kept and when feedings take place. "I also installed child-safety gates and put down doggie mats in strategic places so the dogs would rest in places where my daughter would be less likely to trip or step on them."

Moving the beds to out-of-the-way places was particularly important for Charlie, who tends to plop down and stay put because of his hip dysplasia. "If bumped in just the right spot, he would yelp and snap – especially if sleeping or caught unaware of the person approaching," Carozza says. "Moving his bed to corners of the room where people and kids are less likely to travel helped a lot."

Carozza also took into careful consideration the breeds of dogs he was dealing with, and likewise advises families not to get a pet with a disposition that might be suspect if they're going to start a family. In his case, Carozza has a Border Collie, with an occasional tendency to herd and nip, which is an inbred instinct from the days of sheep herding.


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