Mya has always been a lap dog. If she has her way, she is curled up on Melissa Moore, cozy, like a living, breathing, furry little pillow.

When Moore, of Fort Wayne, had her daughter, she worried what the little terrier mix would do. She only had so much lap – how would Mya deal with it when she had to, say, nurse Reagan?

Well, she’d curl up at Moore’s feet or sit right next to her.

Or, maybe, she’d just make room.

“She literally wormed her way underneath the baby,” Moore says. “People use a Boppy pillow (to lay the baby on). My dog was my Boppy pillow. She was perfectly happy to get squished by the baby, and the baby was perfectly happy to squish her.”

Moore is a registered veterinary technician at Pine Valley Veterinary Clinic. She has four dogs, and she teaches pet-friendly classes at Parkview North Hospital. In their second full year, the classes are for parents with pets who want to know how to prepare their dogs and cats for the new addition to the household.

Moore divides the classes into three sections: getting the pet ready during the pregnancy, what to do when parents bring the baby home and teaching the baby to be safe with the pet as she gets older.

The first thing to do, Moore says, is schedule a veterinary appointment for the pet before the baby comes.

“If this is a first baby, you don’t realize how little time you actually have for other things when you bring home a new baby,” she says. “You don’t want to let the pet’s health go by the wayside if there’s something you can address before the baby comes that’s important.”

Plus, if something is wrong with a pet’s health, it can be more irritable, and the pet should be as comfortable as possible when the new addition to the family is introduced.

When the baby is born, Moore stresses the importance of making sure the pet doesn’t feel like the baby is a bad thing. If an owner ignores the pet completely when the baby is awake, for example, and only plays with the pet during the baby’s naptime, the pet will start to associate the baby with being ignored. She suggests, for example, keeping a bowl of dog treats near where the baby is changed. Every time a parent changes a diaper, he can toss the dog or cat a treat, so it will start to associate the baby with good things.

“What I’m doing right now with my child is teaching her: Don’t pull the dogs’ tail or ears. We don’t stick our fingers up their nose. If they’re eating, we don’t touch them. We watch from a distance,” Moore says.

Certain breeds can be better suited to being around baby. Low-energy, friendly, social dogs are the most adaptable pets, while independent, excitable, high-maintenance, busybody dogs are the least adaptable, says San Francisco veterinarian and animal behaviorist Sophia Yin.

“Little dogs can be more jealous and more snippy,” says Lynn Sullivan, community health program manager for The BirthPlace at Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center and Orthopaedic Hospital.

The most common questions Moore says she hears from parents in her class concern cats’ parasites and dogs with bad manners. For the former, Moore says, as long as a pregnant woman practices good hygiene, she won’t have to worry. For the latter, she stresses the importance of training the pet and getting better control of it.

And if the dog starts barking when the baby is sleeping, don’t fret.

“While you’re pregnant, the baby can still hear dog bark,” she says. “It’s not brand-new. My dogs don’t wake up my child.”

jyouhana@jg.net