It's a dog's life

Do dogs and babies mix? Will the dog howl when the baby cries? Will the baby howl when a big wet nose is pushed in her face? A year on from getting her first dog, new mother Edith Schofield eyes the world of babies from a dog's perspective.

The laundry seemed like a good place for a dog to sleep.

There are no guilty feelings as when the dog is shoved from next to the fire out into a cold Dunedin winter's night.

Or needless worries about finding the couch covered in dog hair the next morning.

So, as a wave of doggy odour wafts past my pillow, I wonder just how did Lucy manage to end up sleeping in the bedroom? Not only in the bedroom, but right next to the bed, where I always manage to trip over her as I creep out to the toilet, or stagger bleary-eyed to the also newly installed baby cot.

As my body struggles to adjust to being woken by hungry baby cries at 1am, 3am and 5am, I realise things are going to have to change when doggy rustlings also wake me at 2am and 4am.

When baby Anika first arrived, Lucy, our about 3-year-old black and white collie-spaniel cross, kept me company during the middle of the night.

She would wander over for a pat before collapsing on my feet while the baby fed.

Now, she barely lifts her head, opening one eye and then quickly closing it with a sigh.

Maybe to go back to dreams of what life was like before the baby, when she was the No 1 attraction in the household.

Before second walks gave way to baby bath time and easy dry biscuits replaced homemade gourmet dog dinners.

Now the portacot, baby bouncer and bags of nappies shrink her space in the car boot to the size of a shoebox, and that is before the mountain buggy falls on top of her five minutes down the road.

However, it's still not a bad dog's life, for an ex-SPCA rescue, who was found locked in a house where she had been abandoned for more than two weeks without food and water.

I'm not sure what Lucy's life was like before her previous owner moved out and left her behind like a piece of unwanted furniture, but the first time we took her to a beach she just ran and ran and ran as if she had never seen so much open space before.

"That dog really smiles," somebody once said to me.

When we found out a baby was on the way, we wondered how Lucy would react to the arrival of a new pack member.