Introducing 3 Power Breeds to a Newborn Baby

As many of you may know, I recently brought home a newborn, and as you know, I’m pretty crazy and have 3 “power breeds”: a Rottweiler, a German Shepherd & a Dutch Herder- 3 breeds that come with High Prey Drive, high arousal (excitement) and high possession.

It has really been a learning curve; we put a lot of work in before the baby came home, but it still left us with a few headaches. But this is normal, so here are a couple of things I noticed with each dog.

Kona - Kona has been around the block; she did not care. She was around when my daughter was born, and all we did differently was not allow as much contact, but this wasn’t an issue, as Kona likes to do her own thing anyway.

Kasper - He’s only a puppy 4 months old when we brought the baby home, the biggest thing was making sure he settled and not bouncing off furniture causing havoc, however the baby waking at night defiantly woke him up, for the first few nights, but he settled into it nicely, he doesn’t really seem to notice of care, but to this dog everything is a toy, so we've had 0 interaction with the baby apart from pushing a buggy next to him!

Athena - She continues to be the problem child, as she is quite socially inept. I don’t think she fully understood what the baby was; she was hyperfixated, locking onto the baby like a Lion on an Antelope; it left us feeling uneasy. I don't believe she would do any harm, but it's not a risk anyone would take. She spent a lot of the first few days in a place bed, or segregated; now she is so chill around him, and doesn't even bat an eye.

We have to remember that babies are the epitome of high-pitched sounds and jolty fleeing movement; this can send dogs crazy, which is mainly why I opted to not even introduce them. The novelty of that baby wore off, I put proper management in with beds and crates, and now they all coexist beautifully.

But man, no more kids as it's a juggling match, maybe more dogs though…