New Baby Program in Chicago

Tucker Pup's New Baby Program helps your dog get used to the reality of a new baby in your home. We can help with common challenges such as walking calmly next to your stroller, being calm around your new baby, reducing resource guarding, and reducing anxiety about being touched. Our trainers have successfully helped many parents over the years so their dog and baby can peacefully co-exist, while you can walk more confidently with a stroller in one hand, with a loose leash in the other.

We can help your dog walk calmly next to your stroller

How the Program Works

What is Covered

We cover a number of important topics in this program to help your dog become acclimated to having a baby in the home:

This includes:

Calmly walking next to a stroller without pulling
Safe, controlled introductions to your new baby
Setting up your home properly to accommodate dog and baby
Teaching your dog to be independent and separated from you and your baby
Minimizing resource guarding, which could happen when your baby picks up a dog toy or gets near the food bowl
Reducing anxiety if your baby touches your dog, such as on the ears or tail
Reducing negative response to baby noises such as crying or babbling

We can help with other behaviors as well - just ask!

Step 1: Dog Diagnostic

Our first step is to conduct an assessment of your dog's behaviors, in order to create the best plan for moving forward. Typically this occurs in your home, where we can see the daily environment and possible triggers. If we cannot do this at your home, it is possible to come to our training facility or have a meeting over Zoom.

Session duration and frequency

Training sessions last one hour. We recommend meeting once per week in order to achieve success. This is not an absolute requirement, and we can be flexible.

Curated methodology

We have a curated methodology that incorporates highly effective exercises, games, routines, recommendations, and even products. This means that instead of wasting your time sifting through the Internet, you can get right to results.

Professional, experienced trainers

We have an entire team of trainers who are professional, friendly, and highly experienced. We have successfully helped thousands of dogs, and feel confident we can help yours as well. Our training experts collectively have decades of experience providing highly effective training that is rooted in science-based methods. We only use positive reinforcement and compassion to achieve results.

Location

Since we are working on acclimation, we normally recommend meeting at your home. However, we can also meet at our training facility if in the best interest of your dog, or if you are outside of our travel radius.

TrainTrack™ online platform

When you enroll in any of our training programs, you have access to TrainTrack, our proprietary platform for watching videos of the exercises assigned, seeing recommendations, reading handouts, uploading videos to your trainer, logging your progress, and more. This helps ensure your success instead of wondering "now what was that again?"

Price

The price for this program is $135 per session, unless your dog is demonstrating severe emotional reactions such as resource guarding or reactivity on leash - the price in this instance would be $175 per session. This price includes a treat pouch and optional clicker.

Additional potential costs:

$10 per session if we come to your home
Reimbursement for any parking fees that we incur

Don't try to go it alone - we can save you lots of time, money, and headaches!

FAQs

Can we enroll in the program if we haven't had our baby yet?

We strongly recommend that you start working on baby preparation before you actually have your baby. We can work with stuffed dolls, baby toys, and a real stroller in order to desensitize your dog and start creating positive associations.

Can we work on stroller walking if we don't have a stroller yet?

Yes! Tucker Pup's has a baby stroller at our training facility, and we can go right out to the sidewalk to start working on stroller walking. We strongly recommend this BEFORE your baby arrives, so you don't struggle on the sidewalk and potentially have your dog pull you down on the sidewalk or create a dangerous situation.

What if our baby is now a toddler or young child?

We can still work with you, and will change the context a little to focus more on challenges such as jumping up on your child, becoming possessive over toys, and more.

What if our dog is becoming aggressive towards our baby?

Our trainers frequently help with reactivity and aggression, and can help in this context. Our goal is that your dog and baby can peacefully co-exist so you don't need to relinquish your dog.

A Happy Customer

Jamie Walker, CPDT-KA, CCDT

Our trainer, Jamie Walker, is incredible. Most importantly, she immediately bonded with our dog, Sophie, and understood how to motivate and communicate with her. That led to quick and lasting behavioral changes that improved quality of life for us and our pup.

Jamie is a total professional. Beyond being an expert at what she does, Jamie is on-time, communicative, and kind. We looked forward to training every week because she made it fun and stress-free.

(Backstory: Jamie helped train Sophie when she was a puppy back in 2020. Fast forward five years, and my husband and I are expecting our first child. We were debating doing additional training with Sophie to help prepare her for having a baby in the house, but we weren't sure if it was necessary. When we saw that Jamie had availability to work with Sophie again, the decision was made in a snap. We knew the value of Jamie's guidance from our first round of training, and we signed up again right away, and we're SO glad we did.)

- Allison Hickson

Positive Reinforcement Methods

Positive Reinforcement Dog Training in Chicago Tucker Pup's only uses positive reinforcement methods. We do not use prong collars, choke chains, shock collars, poking, yelling, leash popping, or other aversive methods. Dominance can easily cause your dog to distrust you, and to only comply in order to avoid a negative outcome. This isn't truly learning, and can cause your dog's behaviors to become much worse.

Positive reinforcement is much more effective for creating long-term learning and a stronger relationship with your dog. Dogs love training when this style is being used, are much more responsive to their owners, and are much happier in general. In short, positive reinforcement gives you the best chance of success, and can be the fastest way to get results. If you are hesitant, please trust us on this one and feel free to ask us questions.

Positive reinforcement combines an encouraging tone of voice, clear instruction, relaxed body language, the use of rewards (e.g., treats, favorite toy), patience, and empathy.

If you are concerned about giving treats, keep in mind that they work very well for most dogs, you can phase them out at your discretion, and it is possible to use something else that your dog values, such as a favorite toy.

Neighborhoods We Serve

Tucker Pup's is located in the West Loop / Fulton Market District neighborhood. People come to us from all over Chicago, especially from .