Malamute to a Good Home

I'm only half kidding.

Our first born human child was born on September 26 after I was induced a week and one day early. You can read about all the gory details here. :)

We brought him home a couple of days later (he had to be in NicU for 24 hours and I lost a LOT of blood so we were in the hospital for a couple days).

The doctor gave us the first towel to ever touch the little guy...it still had blood on it and hubby took it home a few hours ahead of me and baby for the doggies. He said they sniffed it and were sort of interested but didn't seem super aware.

So in I walk with little Marshal and Trooper is completely fixated. Timber is just happy to see me. He wanted to sniff the baby but mostly just wanted to be pet. Kodiak and Quinn could have cared less.

We go into the bedroom and put the baby in his bassinet. Daddy knelt down next to Trooper who was sniffing the bassinet and Timber was trying to get me to pet him while I used the bathroom (he has no boundaries). After a little bit Timber tried to walk by Trooper and daddy, showing no interest in the baby, and Trooper attacked.

Considering my condition and emotional state it was not the ideal situation for our first 15 minutes being home.

I pulled Timber away and daddy dragged Trooper out of the bedroom and the baby gate went up to keep all the dogs out of the bedroom.

We're not sure if Trooper was being possessive because he thought Marshal was food or a toy or because he's the new human. He's generally only aggressive over food so I'm guessing he thought he was food. :(

My first words to hubby were "we're sending Trooper away"...of course, I was a mess for the first two weeks after Marshal was born. I didn't really leave the bedroom much and I hardly ate. I'm already down to my pre-pregnancy weight. The stress of being in the same room with any of the dogs was too much for me.

We're going on 4 weeks this Saturday and I'm doing a lot better. The dogs on the other hand...

Let's just say that I will never trust Trooper and Timber is a big clumsy goof who would accidentally hurt the baby just by knocking him over. Trooper gets very fixated on the baby whenever he's near. If his ears go back I get very alert and tell Trooper "NO" in a strong voice and he generally goes and lays down.

I'm sure he's jealous and he's also bored. None of the dogs have gotten walked in over a week. Although daddy does play with them and wrestle in the living room...and throw the ball when it isn't raining.

The issues with Trooper are not going to go away...they need to be managed and carefully monitored. He attacked Quinn in the kitchen and got her pretty good...she had a huge gash over her eye and we almost took her to get stitches (it's healed up now). It was almost definitely over food as it happened in the kitchen where they were all barricaded and we'd just cooked dinner.

Malamutes have a huge prey drive and little Marshal (all 8 pounds of him) sounds a lot like something yummy to snack on. When he starts to crawl and move around it will be even worse. Right now we are using two different baby gates to separate the dogs from the baby when we need to. They are getting to smell him and see him though...if one of us is holding him the dogs are allowed to be in the room (but still not the bedroom).

I want Trooper to be one of Marshal's best friends someday and hopefully when he's older and bigger that can happen. But the next few years are going to be stressful for me and are going to require constant vigilance. And I will not hesitate to send Trooper back to his breeder (or his aunt) if he ever shows true aggression toward Marshal.

I do have some hope. He's never shown ANY aggression toward small kids - toddler age and up. He's always sniffed them and that's it...but it could be different with a child in "his" home. We shall see.