“My dog is very good with kids.”
When you are about to bring a baby home to a house with a big protective dog, that is one of the most dangerous sentences you can say. Not because your dog is bad. Maybe he is a great dog. The problem is that this sentence makes people relax. And when a newborn comes home, relaxing is exactly the wrong thing to do.
A newborn is not a kid. And “good with kids” is not a plan.
In this article, adapted from my video below, I explain what really changes when a baby arrives, and what you actually need to have in place. Not labels. Control and supervision.
Watch the Video: Is Your Dog a Threat to Your Baby?
“Good With Kids”: Which Kids, Doing What?
When someone tells me their dog is good with kids, I always want to know: which kids, doing what?
Maybe your dog is great with the neighbor’s 10-year-old who throws the ball for him. That’s nice. But it tells you very little about how he will react to a baby.
For a dog, a baby is something completely different. A baby cries, makes sounds the dog has never heard, smells different and moves in strange ways. Later the baby crawls, grabs, pulls, falls on things, and goes straight to the dog’s bed or the dog’s food bowl, with no idea that this could be a big problem.
So your dog was good with kids in one situation. Now you are putting him in a completely new situation and expecting the same result. That’s not fair to the dog, and it’s not safe for the baby.
Words like “stubborn,” “dominant” or “good with kids” are human labels. The dog doesn’t know about them. What matters is what the dog actually does, in this house, in this moment, with this particular baby.
Size Changes Everything, Even Without Aggression
When I talk about big protective dogs, I mean Boerboels, Cane Corsos, German Shepherds, Presa Canarios, big Malinois: dogs with a lot of power.
With a dog like this, you don’t need aggression for something bad to happen:
- A big dog that jumps up because he’s excited.
- A dog that runs through the living room and hits the mother holding the baby.
- A dog that wants to sniff the baby and puts his full weight on the side of the bouncer.
None of this is aggression. But with a newborn, it doesn’t matter. The result can still be catastrophic.
That’s why “Is my dog aggressive?” is the wrong question. The better question is: can I control my dog in every situation that matters, in this house, with this baby? That’s a very different question.
When Your Protective Dog “Protects the Baby”
Many people love the idea that the dog sees the baby as part of the family. “He’s going to protect the baby.” Maybe. But think about what that can mean in practice.
In the first weeks after the baby comes home, who visits? Everyone. Grandparents, aunts, friends, neighbors, people bringing gifts. People the dog doesn’t know well, all walking straight to the most important new thing in the house.
For a dog with strong guarding instincts, that can be a lot. A guard dog usually works from his own instinct: he sees something, he decides, he reacts. That’s fine when someone is at the gate. It’s not fine when grandma bends down to pick up the baby and the dog decides he doesn’t like it.
With Boerboels, what I tend to see is a strong emphasis on guarding territory and defensive behavior. That’s part of the breed, and it’s what makes them such good guard dogs. But it also means many of these dogs have more difficulty switching from that defensive state back to obedience. In my experience, molosser and mastiff-type dogs are generally much slower at switching than a trained working-line German Shepherd or a Malinois. Not every dog. But you need to know if that’s your dog.
Know the Real Dog in Front of You
There’s another thing. Not every dog that looks protective is confident.
Some dogs bark and look tough because they are worried. They don’t want the conflict; they want the thing to go away. That’s defense.
Now imagine that dog in a house that suddenly changes completely: new sounds, new smells, lots of visitors, less sleep for everyone, less attention for him. A confident, stable dog handles that much better. An insecure dog can find it very stressful.
So before the baby comes, be honest about which dog you really have. Not the dog you would like to have. The real one.
Control Under Drive: The Center of Everything
With my students I use a simple model: a triangle with three mental states.
- Prey: chasing the ball, a toy, a cat, a rabbit.
- Aggression: and I use this word in a wide sense. Barking, defending, dominance, intensity. Not only “I want to hurt you.” Think of someone hitting a punching bag with real fire. That’s a form of aggression too, without fear or any wish to hurt anyone.
- Obedience: the dog is thinking, listening and communicating with you. He’s in a state where he can actually hear you.
Real dogs are more complex than that, but this model explains very well what happens in your house when the doorbell rings. Your dog goes up: excitement, guarding, barking. The question is: when he’s in that state and you ask, does he come back to obedience?
Calm obedience is easy. A dog that listens when nothing is happening proves very little. The real skill is control when the dog is very excited, and with a baby in the house, that’s exactly when you need it.
Picture it: you have the baby in your arms. Someone knocks on the door. Your dog explodes toward the door, barking, running past you. What happens next? If your dog knows “down” in the kitchen when you have a piece of food, that doesn’t mean much here. Knowing a command is not the same as having control in high states of arousal. (It’s the same reason a dog listens at home but not outside.)
I always explain this with a car. Drive is the engine. Obedience is the brakes and the steering. A big protective dog has a very big engine. That’s not the problem. The problem is when the brakes only work at five kilometers per hour. The moment things get fast (the doorbell, the visitor, the mailman, the baby screaming) you cannot stop that car.
Now think about speed. When you start this work, a dog in high drive might take 30 seconds to come back to you. Thirty seconds of you calling while the dog is still in his own world. With the right work, you can turn those 30 seconds into 10, then into 3, then almost instant.
Now imagine those 30 seconds with the baby on a playmat on the floor. That’s a very long time.
The goal is not a dog that is calm 24 hours a day. That’s not realistic, and honestly it’s not what I want. The goal is a dog you can bring back to obedience quickly, every time you need it. That’s what makes a house with a big dog and a baby safe. Not hope. Not the label. Control.
This is exactly the kind of work I do with owners in my Drive Control Protocol: real control when the drive goes up, without killing the dog’s drive.
Build It Before the Baby Comes Home
This is where a lot of people make a huge mistake. They know the baby is coming and think, “We’ll see how he reacts.” Then the baby arrives, and suddenly they are trying to train the dog with no sleep, no patience, a crying newborn and a house full of visitors.
That will not work. Nobody trains well in those conditions.
Build it before. Months before, if you can. And build it progressively. You wouldn’t put someone in a Formula 1 race on their first driving lesson. Same with your dog: don’t test him first in the hardest situation and hope he passes.
- Start where the dog can succeed: at home, quiet. Teach him what you want, make it clear, make it positive, reward it well.
- Then add a little more: movement around him, you walking past with something in your arms, sounds, someone at the door.
- Then more: a visitor coming in, a visitor sitting on the sofa, you moving around the house while the dog holds his position.
When something doesn’t work, don’t immediately blame the dog. First look at your communication. Did he really understand? Was your timing right? Was the environment too difficult? Was the reward strong enough? Most of the time, the answer is there.
But remember: teaching is one thing, real life is another. When you teach, you make it positive and happy. You want the dog to like training. In real life, with a baby in the house, a down is a down. Even when the dog would prefer to go to the door or sniff the visitor, he does it because you said so. That’s the difference between a dog that knows the command and a dog that obeys in real life.
Make Obedience the Way the House Works
Think about access. Your dog wants things: attention, going outside, food, being close to the family, being close to the baby. All of those things can go through you.
- You want to come into the living room? Okay. Come first.
- You want attention? Lie down.
- You want to be near the baby? Perfect. That happens when I say, the way I say.
This isn’t about being hard on the dog. It’s about making obedience part of how the dog lives every single day. Not obedience for a piece of food in a training session, but obedience as the way the house works. When the baby arrives, that structure is already there.
Supervision: The Part That Never Changes
Even with good control, this part does not change: a baby and a big dog are never alone together. Never. Not for one minute while you go to the kitchen. Not while the baby is sleeping in the bouncer. Not because the dog is lying there quietly.
And supervision doesn’t mean being in the same room looking at your phone. Supervision means you are actually watching. You see the door, you see the baby, you see the dog, and you are close enough to act if you need to.
Picture the baby crawling on the floor. The doorbell rings, the dog takes off running and puts his paws right on top of the baby. Accidents happen because, most of the time, people don’t really supervise.
If you can’t supervise, the dog and the baby are separated. A crate, a baby gate, another room, a closed door. This is not a punishment, and it’s not saying the dog is bad. It’s management. It’s you being responsible. The best dog in the world can still make a huge mistake, and with a baby you don’t want to find out the hard way.
Honestly, good separation makes life easier for everyone. The parents can relax a little, and the dog has a quiet place where nobody bothers him.
Don’t Forget the Dog’s Needs
Before the baby, maybe your dog had long walks, training, play time and a lot of attention. Then the baby comes and everything stops. Nobody has time or energy. The dog gets a quick walk around the block, and that’s it.
For a working dog or a big guard dog, that’s a big change. A frustrated dog with a lot of power, energy and no outlet is not the dog you want around a baby.
So plan for it. Who is going to walk the dog? Who is going to train him? The routine can change a little, and maybe someone helps you, but the dog still needs his work. Even 10 good minutes of training every day keeps his head connected to you. And that connection is exactly what you need.
The Baby Won’t Stay a Newborn
This is where many families relax too early. The first months go well: the baby is in the bouncer, the crib or your arms, the dog looks at the baby, and nothing happens. Everyone is happy.
Then the baby starts to crawl: toward the dog, his bed, his food, his toys. The baby grabs his ears, pulls his tail, climbs on him. That’s a completely new situation for the dog.
Don’t think the job is done because the first three months were good. Every stage of the child changes the picture, and your supervision and control need to grow with it. The dog’s eating area, his bed and his crate should be places the baby doesn’t go. That’s your responsibility, not the dog’s.
When the child is old enough, they can also learn how to behave with the dog. But that comes later. With a baby, all of this is on you, the adults.
If You Already Have Doubts, Act Now
Here’s something people don’t like to hear. If you look honestly at your dog today and already have doubts, that’s important information:
- a dog you can’t stop when he goes to the door;
- a dog you can’t call back from a visitor;
- a dog that gets very stressed when the house changes;
- a dog that guards his food or his space.
Don’t wait for the baby to arrive to see what happens. Now is the moment to work on it, or to get help. Not after.
Don’t Trust the Label. Build Control.
A big protective dog and a baby can live in the same house. Many families do it. But it doesn’t work because of a label, because “he’s always been good with kids,” or because “he loves the baby.”
It works because you know the real dog in front of you. Because you built control before you needed it. Because your dog can go up and come back down when you ask. Because your supervision is real. And because when you can’t supervise, the dog and the baby are separated.
No magic.
If you’re expecting a baby and you’re not sure your dog is ready, or you already see things that worry you, you can book a call with me. I’ll look at your dog and your situation, and we’ll see if my system can help you get there before the baby comes home.
