Pregnancy Announcement With Your Dog: Ideas and What to Say
You're expecting a baby, and the animal who has lived with you longest is probably asleep a few feet away. Of course they're going in the announcement.
Most pregnancy announcement ideas with a dog stop at the picture. This page has a few picture ideas worth the effort, each paired with a line, and then the words themselves, by situation: in your voice or the dog's, for a sign, for a cat who won't pose, for two pets or an older one, for the holiday card, and for the birth announcement months from now.
Two pointers before that. If the new arrival you're announcing is a puppy or a kitten rather than a baby, you want how to announce your new pet. And getting your dog ready for the baby (the routines, the new sounds, the first meeting) is a separate job, covered in preparing your pet for a new baby. This page is only about telling people.
Before the photo goes up
The first decision isn't the photo. It's who hears the news from you before anyone sees it online.
A post reaches everyone at the same moment, and a few people deserve better than that: the grandparents-to-be, a brother or sister, the friend you tell everything. They get it from you directly, on the phone, in person or in a message of their own, before it's news to everyone else. Nobody else can draw up that list for you, and you'll probably know who's on it without thinking hard.
If the dog is going to be in the photo you post later, put them in the private version too:
We wanted you to hear this from us before it goes anywhere else: we're having a baby in May. Basil is in the picture because Basil is in every picture.
Picture ideas that work with a real dog
Start with the words. Pick the line first, and it tells you what the photo needs to show. The six ideas below ask very little of the dog, which is why they tend to work, and each one comes with a line.
Their things, next to new and smaller things. The dog's bed with a small basket set down beside it, or their bowl beside a tiny one. The dog can wander into the frame or not; the picture works either way.
Basil's bed is getting a very small neighbor in May.
The hook by the door. The dog's lead on its hook, and a tiny knitted hat on the next one. This one needs no dog at all, which makes it a good plan for a day when yours has other ideas.
Same hooks, one more hat. See you in May.
The hand-me-down. Their oldest, most-loved toy beside a brand-new soft one.
Basil's duck has been loved for six years. The new one is waiting for someone who arrives in May.
Asleep beside the news. Set the scan photo, a folded tiny outfit or a calendar with the month circled near wherever the dog naps, and photograph them sleeping through it.
Basil's full reaction to the news.
Everyone in a row, with a gap. The family lined up on the front step, with a space left at the end for someone small.
Nadia, Ezra, Basil, and a space we're saving.
The sign. If your dog will sit beside a small sign (or near it, which counts), the words carry the photo. There are sign wordings further down this page.
One rule for all six: if your dog won't wear it, hold it or sit for it, skip it. The photo of them ignoring the whole production is often the better one anyway.
What to write
Every line below is meant to be borrowed. Change the name and the month, and wherever Basil does something, put in the thing your dog actually does. Basil is six, and he lives with Nadia and Ezra.
In your own voice
Captions for the post itself, from warm to silly.
Party of three, becoming four in May. (Basil counts.)
Six years ago we brought home a puppy. In May we bring home a baby. Basil has agreed to show them around.
Basil's morning walk gets a new member in May. Slower pace, same route.
Nadia and Ezra (and Basil, obviously) are having a baby in May. We can't wait for them to meet.
In the dog's voice
The dog's voice works best when your dog already "talks" on your feed, or when everyone at home speaks for them out loud anyway. If your dog has never said a word in public, your own voice is the safer choice. Either way, pick one voice per caption: a post that starts in yours and switches to the dog's halfway through is hard to follow.
Basil here, with news, and for once it isn't about the cat next door. We're having a baby in May.
I'm going to be a big brother in May. I've put aside one of my toys for them. It's only a little chewed.
Hello from Basil. A baby is coming in May. I've never met a baby, but I've met everyone else, and I liked all of them.
To the one arriving in May: I've lived with these two for six years, and I know everything about them. I'll fill you in. Love, Basil
For the sign
A sign gets read inside a photo, usually on a phone, so keep it to a handful of words and make the letters big. None of these runs past seven words:
- "Big brother, starting in May"
- "Ask me about the baby"
- "Arriving in May: someone smaller than me"
- "New baby in May. Same dog."
If your dog is a she, make the first one "Big sister". "Big sibling" works for any dog, and for any family that would rather not pick.
If your pet is a cat
A pregnancy announcement with a cat works the other way round. You can't get a cat to pose with anything, so don't try: wait until your cat is doing something they'd be doing anyway, take the photo then, and write the line to fit. Wren, the cat in these, mostly sleeps on whatever you've just put down.
- For the photo of her walking out of the shot: "We asked Wren to pose with the news. This is the most of her we got."
- For the photo of her asleep on the new blanket: "Wren has slept on the baby blanket every day since it came out of the bag. We've bought a second one."
- In her own voice: "Wren here. A baby is coming in May. I'll say hello when I'm ready, and not a minute before."
Two pets, one announcement
When a pregnancy announcement has more than one pet in it, give each animal a beat of their own, so they don't read as a matched pair. Bramble and Dash are two dogs in one house:
Bramble is the big one. Dash is the fast one. In May, we get a small one.
If the second animal is a cat, give each of them a place instead. Swap Wren in for Dash:
Bramble has the back step. Wren has the windowsill. In May, someone very small moves into the room in between.
A rabbit, a bird or a guinea pig goes in the same way: their name in the line, and the photo taken wherever they already are.
If your dog is older
An older dog has something no puppy does: years with you. Put the years in the line. Hattie is twelve, and she and Lou have had the house to themselves for a long time.
It's been Hattie and me for twelve years. In March, it's Hattie, me and a baby, and that baby has no idea how lucky they are.
Twelve years of Hattie, and she's never posed with better news.
On the holiday card
If the news is ready around the end of the year, it can ride along on the holiday card. Whether you send a Christmas card, a New Year's card or something else entirely, it reaches everyone on the list at once and ends up on their shelf, and with the dog in the picture the news barely needs a sentence. (The people on your call-first list still hear it before the cards go out.) One line under the names will do it:
Happy holidays from Nadia, Ezra and Basil. Next year's card will need a wider photo.
Season's greetings from all of us, including the one you can't see yet. Due in May.
Merry Christmas from Lou and Hattie. Next Christmas, there will be three of us.
For a picture idea that suits the season, hang the dog's stocking beside a new, very small one, and leave the rest to the caption.
If the dog usually signs the family card, our guide to cards from the dog covers the signature and the voice.
When the baby arrives
Months from now there's a second announcement, and the dog belongs in that one too. A birth announcement with the dog in it is mostly the usual facts (the baby's name, the date, a weight if you like sharing it) plus one line for the dog. Keep it to one; the baby is the headline this time.
Ada Rose, born May 14. Nadia and Ezra are running on no sleep. Basil is running on his usual amount.
Her name is Ada, and she arrived on May 14. She has a lot to say and nowhere near enough fur. I like her already. Love, Basil
Jonah, born March 3. It's Hattie, Jonah and me now, and we're all doing fine.
The first meeting between the two of them has its own advice, in the guide to preparing your pet mentioned at the start of this page, and the photo of them together can wait until everyone has settled in.
And the dog keeps their own days. When their gotcha day comes round next year, it still gets celebrated, with the baby on the guest list.
If a pet you loved isn't here for this
Sometimes the pet who should be in this photo died before it could be taken. Margo died last year, and her family still wants her in the news. That can happen in a few quiet ways. Her name can go in the caption. Her photo can sit in the frame beside you. Or she can stay out of the public post and go into the private messages, to the people who remember her.
Due in May. We wish Margo were here to meet them.
Any of those is right, and the choice can be different for the post and for the card.
Something for the dog's side of it
Everything on this page is for other people: the family, the feed, the names on the card list. If you'd like a version that tells the news to the dog, that's what Your Pet and the New Baby is. It's a short illustrated book in which your dog (or cat), the family's first member, hears the news: someone new is coming, and they're about to be a big sibling. Their name is in it, along with their favorite thing and the place they curl up at night. It's a book for reading aloud at home, and like most things read aloud to a dog, it's really for everyone in the room.
It suits the middle of a pregnancy as well as the weeks after. After checkout you upload one photo of your pet, then answer a few questions, among them how the dedication should be signed, their favorite thing in the world, where they curl up at the end of the day, and whether the baby is on the way or already here. The baby's name and when they're arriving are both optional: leave the name blank and the book calls them "the new baby" throughout.
The pictures are painted from your photo, so they show your pet and not a lookalike, and every book is finished by hand. It's $27, delivered as a digital, print-ready PDF within 24 to 48 hours.
The short version
Six lines for announcing with your dog:
- Tell the people who matter before the photo goes up.
- Pick a picture your dog can actually pull off.
- Write the line before you take the photo.
- Use your voice or theirs, not both in one caption.
- Let the cat do what the cat was already doing.
- Save a line for the dog when the baby arrives.
The dog has been in every picture of this family so far. This one just comes with bigger news.