Dog Toys vs. Baby Toys

[jdg]

I'm expecting my first child in June and looking at some of the baby toys out there has me wondering...

How do those of you with dogs keep the baby toys from being eaten by the dog? Many baby and toddler toys look an awful lot like the toys my dog, Piper, loves to play with - ring-shapes, stuffed animals, ball shapes, etc. Piper is a very strong chewer, so anything she gets hold of that isn't meant to put up with a LOT of abuse gets shredded very quickly. She's usually good about recognizing what's "hers" and not chewing up the stuff that belongs to myself or my husband, but she'll likely get confused with the baby things since they'll look so similar to her own things.

Do you have to always keep the baby/toddler toys put up out of the dog's reach unless your child is actively playing with it?

[MissMommyNiceNice]

Redirection works well with my dog. If I see him sniffing or looking at one of DS's toys, I simply tell him "not your toy, this is your toy" and give him something okay to chew on. It works pretty well.

In one year, he's only eaten one schliech elephant and one wooden block. He's managed not to eat any of the very expensive wooden items. I have had to rescue a few soft toys and bop him on the head while saying "no, bad dog!" but otherwise, no major damage.

Honestly, I have more trouble keepig the kid off of the dog's toys!

[tzs]

i have a pitbull mix toy destroyer too. weird thing is....he won;t touch the baby toys. i really thought he was going to. i think it's b/c of how protective we are/he is of her that he stays away from anything he doesn;t know is his. we had a set of blocks for visiting kids that he had previously erroniously eaten a couple of but now he won't touch them. i think he's pretty much walking on eggshells

[Catubodua]

learn and practice the command "leave it"

it will help you a huge amount - esp. when you are holding a babe and can't jump up and grab the item you don't want them to have.

[Ruthie's momma]

Redirection has worked well with our dogs, as well. DD has always been more interested in their toys than vice versa. For Christmas, each of the dogs received these squeeky monkey toys. DD has played with them everyday by carting them around in her M & D shopping cart. And, yes, we get our dogs Christmas presents...

[diana_of_the_dunes]

I wish I knew... LOL. We have two dogs. The younger one has gotten two maple teethers and one or two stuffed toys. He destroys his own toys routinely, just because he's such an aggressive chewer. I've found that if the baby toys are put into a basket, even if the basket is on the floor, the dog knows that they aren't his. But when they get left on the floor, his doggy mind interprets them as fair game. If we leave certain baby toys on the floor and go into another room, the dog will often move them (he knows not to chew them, but he has some retriever in him and likes to carry things around. We often come home to find all our shoes in a pile on the area rug in the living room. He doesn't damage anything, just rearranges ). Other toys have been on the floor for a week and he won't touch them. But the exception for him is the maple teethers... He stole one of them from under the chair where the baby had dropped it - and I was sitting in the chair! I found it downstairs with tooth marks on it. I don't know why, but he LOVES them.

[lifeguard]

As long as the toys are put away at night & when we're not home it's ok as our girls generally don't do much chewing when we're home.

[ReadingRenee]

Our dog knows to leave the babys toys alone but the baby on the other hand... I am always catching her with a dog toy in hand or in mouth... and the dog often will bring one of her own dog toys for the baby to play wiht so even if I put them out of reach of the baby, the dog wants to share.

Now it has started to go the other way around. The other day I caught the baby trying to give the dog her pacifier, like put it in her mouth! LOL And she has started offering her toys to the dog as well.

[2boyzmama]

Toys actually aren't as a big a deal as pacifiers for some reason! My great dane has chewed up several pacifiers

We have had a few toys get chewed, but usually it's only when the dogs don't get enough attention. It's the first sign that it's been a few days since their last walk.

We use the command "drop it" and the dogs respond well. We also are sure to close the door to the play room if we're leaving the house, that way the dogs aren't tempted.

[Madalyn]

Originally Posted by MissMommyNiceNice

Redirection works well with my dog. If I see him sniffing or looking at one of DS's toys, I simply tell him "not your toy, this is your toy" and give him something okay to chew on. It works pretty well.

In one year, he's only eaten one schliech elephant and one wooden block. He's managed not to eat any of the very expensive wooden items. I have had to rescue a few soft toys and bop him on the head while saying "no, bad dog!" but otherwise, no major damage.

Honestly, I have more trouble keepig the kid off of the dog's toys!

THIS! My dog is very respectful of the baby's toys. She's only chewed up one block. I have to admit I was surprised because she loves to chew random crap. I was expecting her to be all over his stuff. Now my son on the other hand loooves to get all in her toybox. *facepalm* Oh and I will admit the dog has gotten a diaper a time or two. That's the worst but toys have been okay so far.

[JessieBird]

I've also found that it is easier to keep the dog off the baby toys than it is to keep the baby off the dog toys. We've just decided that dog hair and slime are a new, and essential, food group.

JK. I've been surprised at how much my dog respect's the baby toys and how she really knows the difference. Her toys are kept very separate from baby's toys and I tidy both of them up frequently throughout the day to keep the distinction clear. I agree with pps who have mentioned that dogs recognize the reverence we pay to our babies and their stuff, dogs seem to follow suit. We also don't stress it too much if the odd baby toy ends up in the dog's mouth (though expensive or treasured ones are closely protected) and vice versa. Now at 15 months, my son loves to play interactively with the dog. Passing her toys and taking them back, fetch, etc. I love that he is learning so much from this (they both are) and hate to interrupt if the fetch toy of choice happens to be DS's ball or stuffed animal instead of the dog's. So I let things go to a certain extent.

As for cleanliness, it thoroughly grosses me out that my son's toys are often covered in dog hair (golden retriever, no matter how often my cleaning help came, there would always be hair) or that he chews on dog's toys occasionally but I've had to let it go. Even if I kept the toys 100% separate, DS would get the same hair and slime and dirt in his mouth just from crawling around on the floor so that's life in our world.

[sunshynbaby]

I am really surprised that we haven't had a problem. I think our dogs recognize the baby's scent on his stuff and know it isn't theirs. Years ago, my parent's dogs would chew up all the grandkid's toys. We just had to stay on top of it, keep telling them no, and redirecting them to their own toys. They eventually learned the difference.

[jdg]

I guess I'll stop worrying about this for now. I don't care so much about the doggy spit and hair. With five cats and one dog, there is no way any baby in our house won't be coming into contact with animal "stuff". I just don't want Piper destroying too many of the baby's things. If dogs in general seem to respect the baby things, then I likely don't have to worry much. Piper's been pretty good about only chewing things that she believes are "hers".

[beebalmmama]

Our dog is such an aggressive chewer and destroys her own toys, minus her cong and a sturdy rubber tire. So we pretty much limit her toys to outside. She knows that anything inside is off limits. Ds (4.5 yrs) now actively throws his balls for her (although we warn him, she will start to think they are hers). Which she does now and occasionally picks up his toys when very excited. So I think we'll stick to the dog toys staying out even with this next babe.

[dachshund mom]

Like the PPs, we have way more problems with DD chewing on the dog toys, or with DD handing her toys/food to the dogs. I have many videos of DD and one of our three dogs passing a nylabone back and forth. I do put away or collect her toys in a laundry basket when we go out. Now that I think about it, it's weird how they don't touch her things.

[Gillian01]

It’s recommended to use "Dog-Proof" toys which are not harm and keeps dog to be energetic always. Give these toys to your dogs when you’re out or when it spends unaccompanied time and you can also guide your dogs from these toys.