Sparky

In early June we went to a class to learn more about what we could do to help Sparky adjust to a new baby. As most of you know Sparky has been our baby for 3 years now and since he has a nipping problem we were worried about how he would react. The class was actually quite helpful as it gave us some pointers on what we could do now to prepare him for December. The goal is to make the changes now so that he does not associate all the changes with the baby.
After the class we acknowledged Sparky's biggest problems and how we could start to work on them:
1. When Sparky is in the car with the windows up he HATES trucks, runners, bikers, walkers, etc...and will immediately jump into the window and bark his head off. He lets nothing get in his way (including people) so we figured that this would be a BIG problem when there was a car seat in his way. One of the things that was suggested at the class was a harness for Sparky. I thought that this was a good option because it allowed him to stay up front in the car, but would limit his movement. We went to PetSmart and tried on a few harnesses before finding one that would fit Sparky. We immediately installed it and tried it out. On the way home it seemed to work well as it keep Sparky on his side of the car. However, when we got home we went to the backseat to release Sparky and found that he had already managed to get out of the harness. I didn't know whether to feel defeated with the harness or proud of our dog for figuring how to escape his trap. We're still working on what to do now...
2. Crawling babies = playmate for Sparky. We learned that Sparky likes to play with kids through several encounters with children. He loves that they like to throw him the ball over and over again. However, we did not know that when a child crawls he thinks he should get down and be in the child's face to play until our friends Barb and Andy came over with Donovan and Nellie. While he does not hurt the child it does freak them out (and us!) to have him suddenly in their face. One of the suggestions that they made during the class was to make use of a doll so Dave and I are now playing with dolls. We bought one at Target that crawls and cries and we are trying to play with it on a regular basis so that Sparky gets use it and we can work on redirection. At first he wasn't so sure, but this weekend when we had friends over and they wanted to see how he did we pulled out the doll and Sparky brought the baby doll his ball so that the doll would play with him. As silly as it sounds this seems to be working.
3. If it is a toy - it must be Sparky's. We have learned over time that Sparky thinks all toys are his. We had a baby gift at our house prior to a shower and we caught Sparky trying to remove the cute toy attached to it. He is especially drawn to anything that makes noise (squeaking toys are his favorite!!). One of the tips that they gave us in the class was to get some baby toys and to sprinkle with baby powder or rub with baby lotion. You then place them on the floor and teach him that toys that smell like baby are the baby toys and he should not play with them. Last weekend we bought a toy that was soft, played music, and squeaked. After apply baby powder to the toy we placed it on the floor and taught him (through redirection) that it was the baby's toy. Now whenever we put it down he may smell it, but ignores it.
4. The Nipping- we are suppose to be using time out to help out with this problem. However, in order to practice time outs we have to have him nip someone. Not something that we encourage so this one is going to be hard. I am hoping that if we use some of the "bringing home baby" tips that we learned that Sparky will be take ownership of the baby and protect him as he does me.