Older dogs and new born babies

My Grand-daughter is expecting a baby in 9 days time and I not sure that Pepsi has ever met a baby before. She is ok with 5 or 6 year olds, just very excitable.
Has anyone got any tips on the best way to introduce Babe and Peps?
I am also worried by Pepsi's habit of wanting to turn out everybody's bags when they arrive.
I know her nose is going to be straight in the carry seat thingy. We just haven't been able to break her of it, although she is getting better.

My problem is not with baby, she will have 2 dogs of her own, it is with Pepsi's over excitability and general inquisitiveness.
Help ........

We worried about the same thing with Rupert and my nephew. We ended up with my dad sitting down holding the baby and me bringing Rupert in on leash. He had a good long sniff of the babys feet and that was the end of it really. Any sign that he was getting over excited and he got put in another room to calm down before being let back out.

He was also allowed to have a good sniff of all the babys things without the baby in them (pram, little bouncy chair thing etc) so they weren't a big deal.

Give the dog something of the babe to smell before introducing a noisy bundle to her----that'll give her an idea.

rune

Would it not be better to train her to ignore the baby? Babies really aren`t that interesting are they? Until they start crawling round the floor that is, and by that time the dog should have got used to them.

Thanks Sarah, good ideas.

Thanks Rune, we will do this

Thanks Claire, training is on going to ignore all sorts but she gets so excited
It's as things move that she gets most worked up so as you say maybe by that time she will have got used to her.
(hope I will have too )

i always let our last girl meet the babies and have a sniff while telling her calmly to be nice, she seemed to know they were fragile and was so gentle around them, even though she was a very bouncy staffie normally, as long as the dog isn't made to feel pushed out by the baby then no jealousy should come about, hope it goes well

When we brought Jack home from the Hospital, we just let the three Sheps come over and investigate him whilst I was holding him (this was after I'd gone in an made a fuss of them first as I hadn't seem them for a while lol). They just thoroughly sniffed him all over, Jess did her obligatory snogs, Harley just got bored and went away, and Angus just sniffed some more lol. It was all very calm, but after that, they didn't really get that interested in Jack, other than when he made a new noise for the first time (to which I just reassured them that "it's ok, it's just Jack"), and then they were great.

I find dogs seem to instinctively know to be gentle with babies.

The only time now I need to be careful with Jack and the dogs is when it's walk time as Jess turns into a loony lol. He's clever though (nearly 18 months), and hides behind the stair gate next to the sofa lol.

i just put both the babies down on the floor in their car seats for Bruno to lick the face off as thats what he wanted to do, he did that got it out of his system and that was that. I have found the more I try to stop him from licking them the more he was determined to do it.. Obviously he was 5 when luca arrived and we had had him for 3 years at that point, but he hadn't been around babies before.

I think if everyone is pretty relaxed then pepsi should be too,, even if she gets to lick babies feet or something if mummy isn't keen on the face getting licked.

Thanks Pepsi has never shown any jealousy about anything so fingers crossed.

She has been very good with the older children so fingers crossed!

As I say we are a family of doggy people so Mum and baby will have to be used to dogs, although I am not sure about face licking. Or is that just me Feet is a good idea though!

i wasn't sure bout the whole face licking either but it certainly gets the job done when there is yoghurt/porridge etc there !! LOL