Baby's First Visit to a Dog Run

It’s been quite a long time since we last took Donna to the dog run.

Left: Cannon Ball Tree at Sembawang Park.
Right: Donna dog resting her chin on my thigh in the car.

This time Little P gets to join her on this outing!

Little P bending down to observe Donna playing with a toy poodle.

Note: Little P’s Chicco Bravo stroller was sturdy and survived a large golden retriever jumping on it to lick Little P! More about the GR further down in this post!

We really enjoy this robust stroller. It has great suspension to give Little P smooth rides on bumpy roads and grass dog runs :P That said, it can get a little heavy when handling it in and out of the car boot. Check it out on Amazon.

How safe is it to bring baby into a dog run?

Little P did not enter the dog run immediately. Instead, Donna and I went in to check it out first. It was only when we were more or less comfortable with the dogs in there that Little P was brought in.

That said, we were still on the look out for dogs who might

Mark Little P’s stroller
React to Little P’s stroller
Jump on Little P

No dogs marked Little P’s stroller that we could observe. And only Jingle reacted to Little P’s stroller barking a little.

But a golden retriever succeeded in licking Little P’s feet, and even jumped up on the stroller to lick Little P on his face and arm.

On hindsight, it would have been more prudent to babywear Little P into the dog run, rather than pushing him in in a stroller. Simply because we were too slow to react, let alone intercept the GR despite being on the look out for strange dogs approaching Little P. And we were lucky our stroller was stable and sturdy enough to withstand the weight of a large golden retriever. A lesser stroller would have toppled with the baby I think.

The other lucky thing was, Little P did not react negatively to the strange giant dog that that accosted him. In fact, he appeared to be taking things in his stride. Phew. Really, we were just lucky I think. I do hope Little P doesn’t get nightmares later.

Some dogs may not be comfortable around babies

On the other side of the coin, some dogs actually would rather not be too near a strange baby. Donna as you can see in this photo is her usual placid self, just focused on her job to sit and stay and not even looking at Little P.

baby and dogs — Donna, Little P and Jingle the Sheltie. Photo by @somewhitecookie

Jingle on the other hand had no experience with alien babies coming down from the sky. In this photo above, you can see that she is showing some signs of stress with her ears towards the back of her head and the whites of her eyes showing.

We ended up positioning Little P to one side and Jingle to the other side of Donna.

But really the best picture was of Jingle and Donna together without Little P. Hah!

sheltie and mongrel dog — Donna is wearing collar and tag from @avaloncrafts. Photo by @somewhitecookie

Donna had a lot of fun running after the big dogs

A short video of Donna playing at Sembawang Park Dog Run.

And Donna did take “revenge” on the Golden Retriever for giving Little P unsolicited doggy kisses. The rascal humped the Golden Retriever on the head. That’s a sign of over-excitement by the way and it signaled to us that Donna was definitely ready to leave.

mongrel dog with avaloncrafts collar and tag — The head humping rascal with a sunny smile
Photo by @somewhitecookie

There will be future occasions that Little P will accompany Donna to the dog run, so guess we will be better and more experienced at such outings eventually.