When you have a baby the love you feel for that baby (in most cases) is much, much deeper than any love you have ever felt before. Until you experience it you have no idea just how hard that love hits you. It's pretty incredible. BUT it doesn't mean that you will love your dog any less, just the same way that you don't love your partner or other kids any less.
What does make a difference, though, is the amount of time you have left over for animals in the first few months. In those months your baby needs you every second of every day. There's not a great deal of time for anything else unless you have plenty of help. You need to get things organised so that it's eaier to cope. Babies do take priority, though, so you have to juggle everything around the baby so that the dog's not neglected.
A lot of it is down to how much you love your dog. Many people just get a dog for the sake of getting a dog. Those dogs will often end up being shoved into rescues. But if you have that dog because you love it dearly and it's a real part of the family, then it always will be that way. You just have to make sure you have plenty of help and can put aside a bit of quality time for the dog in the first few months.
As I say, you won't love it any less but you will love the baby more.
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"We are all lying in the gutter, but some of us are looking up at the stars." |