Please Don't Bite the Baby (and Please Don't Chase the Dogs)

Keeping Your Kids and Your Dogs Safe and Happy Together

By: Lisa Edwards

Narrated by: Christina Delaine

Please Don't Bite the Baby (and Please Don't Chase the Dogs) chronicles certified professional dog trainer Lisa Edwards' endearing and entertaining journey to ensure that her household survives and thrives when she introduces her son to her motley pack of animals. As Lisa knows all too well, the dog/child relationship is simultaneously treasured, misunderstood, and sometimes feared. In a twist, Lisa's dog training techniques inevitably seep into how she navigates her first year with baby to mixed but enlightening results. Lisa includes her best training techniques for the everyday pet owner at the end of each chapter. This book is important for parents, grandparents, and caregivers who have dogs and young children together and want to ensure safety for all.

©2015 Lisa J. Edwards (P)2015 Tantor

One trainers journey and a lot of good info

I'm an experienced behaviorist and wanted the book to see what others do. My dog/baby situation went better than expected and I live in a rural area where people are less likely to try training and more likely to just get rid of the dog. I used to teach bite prevention to kids online.
This is one dog trainers personal journey and contains a lot of great information. She gives tons of training advice but I wish there was more information on how to add so much training into a busy schedule. I found it possible. I love the positive approach and good up to date behavior advice.
As a behaviorist/trainer myself (educated at Washington University Applied Animal Behavior program and with a Masters degree for clinical therapy and Animal Assisted Therapy ).
I'd say I don't agree with the apprehension on medications and if it had been tried long before the baby came there could have been a lot less work. Meditations have been extremely well studied in dogs, lots of data, and the disinhibition and worse problems/side effects she was worried about does happen but is not statistically as frequent as she made it seem. I was alway very anti medication in general, think the world takes too much, until I saw it change dog's lives again and again. Prozac in combination with trazadone or Xanax for more immediate relief and most vets give a sub-clinical dose and don't know the signs at 12-14 days that say it's the correct dose or you may need to increase as many as 5x to get to the correct dose. For me, I had two of the most scary dogs, one extremely possessive and one extremely aggressive, one needed meds and the other just needed a better more secure life. The one who needed meds was so bad he was kept in a crate in the back room the first few months I had him until the training and meds started to work, then he became the most wonderful dog we ever had.
The other thing I hope she mentioned, as I need to go back because I fell asleep a good part of the book, was how to add all this training into a busy schedule. You can do it with a busy life, slowly with lots of time and good management, give the dog a job compatible with its breed.
I wish I was the kind of person who could write a book and tell my story, but this one was well done.