Questions for those with kids and dogs

overtonhayes

Sorry to be so post-happy but you bumpies are awesome when it comes to honest, frank advice!

Although it's 5 months before Lillian gets here, I'm feeling very confident about my dog. Trouble is, I'm afraid of getting so confident that I become complacent, so I just want to check whether I'm doing anything wrong trying to prepare him for being a big furbrother, or whether there's something that I'm not doing that I should be. Oh, and I can't stress enough that no matter how confident I am that he's baby-safe, he will never be left alone with the baby, even for a second.

Bit of info about the dog first. He's an extremely tolerant dog to begin with. He actually likes cuddles. He's also incredibly smart, which is good, because we've had to change a couple of his habits (like jumping on the couch whenever he wants) and he's picked it up more or less instantly. DH calls him 'lump' because he really is: he just lets you do whatever to him, whether it's pulling him towards you for a cuddle or messing with his ears or taking his toys away from him. He lets you get right up in his face with no problems. So here's what I've been doing:

- He's trained to only take food or treats from a flat palm, so that he won't ever snatch food from baby. You can wave a treat right in his face and if it's between your fingers he'll turn his face away.
- We've stopped him from chasing the kitten, which we previously allowed because believe it or not, kitten loves it. But we don't want him to ever chase baby. It's only been a week and he's already stopped chasing her completely.
- I've been tugging his ears and tail a lot, the way an older baby might. A few times I've even done it quite hard, and he just walks away. Not even so much as a head turn, let alone a growl.
- We've been paying attention to 'warning signs' that he's just tolerating, not enjoying, whatever we're doing (found here http://doggonesafe.com/Signs_of_Anxiety ), and if we see them we immediately stop. We want him to know that we realise a yawn means "please stop", and he'll never have to resort to biting.
- We don't have any baby equipment yet, but as soon as we do we'll be exposing him to it a lot, putting baby powder on it so he gets used to the new scent, etc.
- We've got him so that he never jumps up anymore.
- We're discouraging all growling during play, so we know that if we ever hear a growl, he is not playing and we need to step in immediately. I'm a little concerned about this one, though. Could we be accidentally teaching him to bite first, growl after?

We don't have any friends with children so he's never 'really' met any, but we were at a local festival a few months ago and children wouldn't leave him alone. He seemed to love it. Two kids (about age 4 and 6) were running up to him and gently hitting him to make him bark, then running away. His tail was wagging and when the children came back to 'hit' him again he just let them do it. Other kids got right down in his face and petted it, played with his curly tail and tried to make him do tricks, and it seems that he knows these little people are fragile.

Sorry for the long post, but as I say, I'm worried that I might get complacent. Is there anything I'm missing?