Situation
A new baby and the dog: the plan from the third trimester on
A baby rearranges a dog's world: the schedule, the smells, the sounds, the amount of you it gets. Dogs cope well when the changes arrive one at a time and early. This is the timeline our team suggests to expecting families on Cape Ann, with the services that fit each stage.
What changes
The dog loses its schedule and its share of you, and hears everything
The nursery appears, furniture moves, strangers come and go with bags, and the two people the dog relies on are tense and tired. Then a small creature arrives that smells unfamiliar, cries at a pitch dogs find hard to ignore and takes every free hand in the house. Walks get shorter or vanish. A dog that was the center of the household becomes a background animal overnight, and most of the trouble is a dog trying to get back to the center.
The good news is that dogs adapt to change they have seen coming. A dog that already spends two mornings a week in a playgroup, already sleeps on a mat in the kitchen rather than the bed, and already waits at the nursery door because it was taught to in October will find the baby much less of an event in March. The dogs that struggle had their lives changed on the day the baby arrived.
- Less attention, shorter walks and a house full of new sounds and smells
- Tension in the adults, which the dog reads before anything else
- Change the dog saw coming is change it can absorb
The plan
Four phases: third trimester, delivery days, the first fortnight home, then the taper
Third trimester is the phase to do the work. Teach place and a boundary at the nursery door, move the dog's bed if it will need to move, and start daycare while you still have the energy to drive. The free evaluation runs on weekday mornings until 9:30; after it, one or two half days at $33 a week build a habit that carries through the birth, and a half-day 10-pack at $290 spares you booking in week two. Around the due date, reserve a suite at $78 a night and ask how a stay is handled if the baby is early or late.
The first fortnight home: keep the daycare days exactly as they were, add the Pup Van at $10 each way if nobody can drive, and on the other days a 20-minute solo walk from home at $25 gives the dog its outing and you an hour. Nothing new gets added in this phase; no first groom, no new class. From month three, as the household finds its rhythm, most families drop to one day a week or none, and the dog taught place in October is the dog lying quietly by the crib.
- 01
Third trimester: teach place and a nursery-door boundary; book the free evaluation while driving is easy
- 02
Third trimester: one or two half days at $33 a week, with a half-day 10-pack at $290 for the weeks ahead
- 03
Due date: an overnight suite at $78 a night reserved for the delivery days, with a plan for early or late
- 04
First fortnight home: daycare days unchanged, the Pup Van at $10 each way, a $25 solo walk on the other days
- 05
Month three on: taper to one day a week or none as the routine returns
Cape Ann specifics
Stroller ground, the Pup Van and a license renewal you will forget
The first walks with a stroller and a dog want flat, wide ground: the lawns and paths at Stage Fort Park in Gloucester, where the fenced dog park lets a dog run while the stroller waits outside the gate, and in the off-season the hard low-tide sand at Good Harbor on even-numbered days between October 1 and March 31 at the time of writing. Dogtown Common's boulders and roots are not stroller ground.
The Pup Van, $10 each way in Rockport, Gloucester, Essex and Manchester-by-the-Sea, exists for the weeks when a car seat and a dog will not both fit in your morning; add it to the booking and the dog is collected inside the drop-off window. Gloucester's dog license renews by April 30 whether or not you have slept, with a $20 late penalty, so put the reminder beside the pediatrician's. The dark walks from November to February are the ones a solo walker can take on.
- Stage Fort Park lawns and off-season low-tide sand for the stroller months
- Pup Van at $10 each way for the weeks the car seat wins
- Gloucester license renewal by April 30, $20 late penalty
What not to do
Do not stage the introduction on the doorstep, banish the dog or cancel daycare the week the baby arrives
The doorstep introduction, dog leaping at the car seat while everyone is exhausted, is the scene to avoid. Let the dog greet the returning parent first, without the baby, until the excitement drops, and meet the baby later, calm and on a leash, with something good happening. Do not banish the dog to the yard or the basement for the first month; a dog cut off from the family learns that the baby is what cut it off.
Do not cancel the daycare days when the baby comes, which is the opposite of what tired parents feel like doing. Those mornings are the dog's normal, and hours in which nobody is begging you for a walk. Do not punish the dog for sniffing, stealing a burp cloth or whining at the crying; send it to its place and pay it for staying there. The AKC's expert advice on dogs and babies is a sensible companion here.
- No doorstep introduction with the baby in your arms
- No banishing the dog for the first month
- No cancelling the daycare days in the exhausted week
At Dogtown
The services that fit a growing household
Daycare days that become the dog's normal before the baby arrives, a suite for the hospital days, and solo walks for the fortnight nobody has a free hand.
Pick-up & drop-off
The Pup Van comes to you.
Pup Van pick-up and drop-off is available for $10 each way in the Rockport, Gloucester, Essex and Manchester-by-the-Sea area. Not in the area? Ask us for pricing.
- Rockport
- Gloucester
- Essex
- Manchester-by-the-Sea
Asked and answered
Questions people ask about this
Short, complete answers you can act on today. More in the full FAQ.
When should we start daycare if the baby is due in the spring?
Can the dog stay at Dogtown while I am in the hospital?
How do I introduce the dog to the newborn?
Is a dog walker better than daycare for the first weeks home?
More questions? Read the full FAQ
Sources
Rules and dates change. We re-check every beach, licensing and ordinance page each spring and fall; the source above is the current word.
Keep reading
Next step
Start the dog's new routine before the baby's.
Book the free evaluation for a weekday morning in the third trimester and tell us the due date; we will hold the overnight dates around it.
- 01Free evaluationWeekdays 6:30 – 9:30 AM
- 02Book a dayOnline, in the app or by phone
- 03Play, rest, repeatReport card at pick-up
