Dog Drama: Getting Ready for a REAL Baby

A lot of parents are now paying to baby-proof their dogs. A canine re-education course called Dogs & Storks, launched in 2006, now has 35 affiliated trainers in the U.S. and Canada, with hundreds of graduates.

"It's catching on because people are choosing to have kids later, and their dogs are really their first baby," says the course's creator, Jennifer Shryock of Cary, N.C., who sells it to trainers for $300.

Dogs bite about 4.7 million people a year in the U.S., the majority of them children, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association. Bonnie Beaver, a Texas vet and past president of the group, says that of the 15 to 20 people a year who die from dog bites, about 80% are children.

Ms. Shryock tells expectant parents, "When the baby comes, you are going to look at your dog for the first time as an animal. You will feel different about Fluffy."

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